Barbados' New Senior Counsels Urge Legal Profession to Address Negative Public Perception

Barbados’ new Senior Counsels are being told by one of their own that they can no longer afford to bury their heads in the sand regarding the negative public view of the legal profession.

“If we do not say anything, we give the public the impression that we are condoning it, that we are overlooking it or that we are tolerating it,” said Rudolph Cappy Greenidge SC at a special sitting at which he and ten other senior lawyers were admitted to the Inner Bar.

Though noting the Barbados Bar Association had spoken out against the “bad apples in the profession”, he insisted that the voices of individual lawyers must be heard as well, especially seniors, as the profession “has taken an unprecedented beating and officious tongue lashing from the Barbadian public over the last five years”.

He said incidents of lawyers being hauled before the law courts for engaging in dishonest acts were “disgraceful and embarrassing”.

“When the public speaks about us as though we are morally bankrupt as a profession, it hurts each and every one of us. It looks really bad, disgraceful and embarrassing when those who practise in the law courts choose to ignore the laws or break them and then find themselves before the very law courts. It brings shame to the profession when this happens,” Greenidge said.

The former MP and government minister called for a mentorship programme within the fraternity, noting that while many senior attorneys were often under an enormous workload, newer ones could barely get a job.

Extending thanks on behalf of the group of 11 new SCs – that also included Wilfred Abrahams, Tammy Bryan, Gillian Henderson-Clarke, Kathy-Ann Hamblin, Edmund Hinkson, Anika Jackson, Stephen Lashley, Angela Mitchell-Gittens, Alliston Seale and Liesel Weekes – Greenidge said: “We know that we will measure up to everything which you expect of us…. I can safely say that each and every one of us has gone beyond our legal practice and has made a contribution to the development of Barbados.”

Arthur Holder has also been granted the Senior Counsel title but he is overseas on national duty and was therefore absent from the special sitting.

Others attending the session were Chief Justice Sir Patterson Cheltenham, Attorney General Dale Marshall, Justices Randall Worrell, Elwood Watts and Anthony Blackman and Madam Justices Margaret Reifer and Barbara Cooke-Alleyne, along with several other Senior Counsels and relatives and friends.

Speaking to Barbados TODAY following the ceremony, an elated Mitchell-Gittens expressed thanks to the senior attorneys who mentored her during her junior years and pledged to take on a similar role with the new criminal defence lawyers.

“I am very grateful to the persons who would have gone before me to pave the way and set examples for me to follow…and I would like to endeavour to be a role model for the younger ones who are coming so that they can see that if you work hard in the criminal arena, that there is recognition,” she stated.

Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale was also grateful for the recognition.

“I have worked long and hard. I love the job I do. I do it every day with a passion and somebody else recognised it. I am elated, humbled by it but elated nonetheless,” he stated.