GEORGETOWN – The decades-long struggle for Guyanese law graduates to receive professional training at home is finally over. The proposed site for Guyana’s very own Council of Legal Education (CLE) law school has been cleared, and construction is slated to begin “very shortly,” according to Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, S.C.
The Attorney General visited the eight-acre plot on Sunday, located at the southwestern part of the University of Guyana’s (UG) Turkeyen campus, where the land, previously “overgrown with vegetation,” is now cleared and prepped for the building of the massive new legal institution.
Nandlall stated that an access road is also being created to link the site, which is located just behind the university’s Department of Law. The urgent construction follows a major announcement last month by President Dr. Irfaan Ali that the CLE, the regional body governing legal education, had formally granted Guyana approval to establish its own law school.
For decades, Guyanese law graduates were required to pursue their critical Legal Education Certificates (LEC) at regional CLE schools in Trinidad, Jamaica, or The Bahamas. This system created a severe bottleneck and financial hardship. Historically, Guyana was often restricted to receiving as few as 25 guaranteed annual placements at the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad, despite a large and growing number of qualified graduates.
This forced many aspiring lawyers to pay high tuition and crippling living expenses abroad, costing some families millions of Guyanese dollars.The new school, which will be the fourth CLE institution in CARICOM, is expected to solve these issues.
As President Ali noted, the school will immediately enable “hundreds of persons to qualify as Attorneys-at-law right here in Guyana with full rights to practise in the Caribbean,” strengthening the nation’s legal infrastructure, broadening professional opportunities, and providing drastically more affordable access to high-quality training for the next generation of lawyers.
