ABA ROLI and the Carter Center Train New Attorneys

August 2009

 The ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) and the Carter Center sponsored an advocacy training for 20 new Liberian attorneys. The trainees received their certificates of completion from M. Wilkins Wright, president of the Liberian National Bar Association.

John Hummel, the Carter Center’s program director, and Counselor Lemuel Reeves, senior attorney at the center, each conducted a one-week training that  covered sessions on professional ethics, case strategy, opening and closing statements, direct and cross examination, and objections.

Mock trials presided by circuit judges Hon. Boima Kantoe and Hon. Gevon Smith, who provided their services pro bono, were conducted at the end of each workshop. Trainees, along with Carter Center and ABA ROLI staff, played the roles of court personnel, witnesses, defendants and jurors.

“This program is the first of a series ABA ROLI is developing,” said Counselor Sarah Jegede, ABA ROLI senior staff attorney and manager of the field attorney program. She said that ABA ROLI wants to support new attorneys during their first year of practice and that ABA ROLI staff were “very pleased” with the Carter Center’s support of the program. “Our participants were very enthusiastic about the program,” she added.

The field attorney program is a continuation of the ABA ROLI’s scholarship program that supports third-year law students. Under the program, attorneys are employed by ABA ROLI and its partners during their first year of practice. This year, ABA ROLI is placing 16 new attorneys in various government ministries.

To learn more about our work in Liberia, contact the ABA Rule of Law Initiative at <rol@staff.abanet.org>.