The Tribune

THE Eugene Dupuch Law School (EDLS) has partnered with the Attorney General’s Office, The Bahamas Bar Association and The Caribbean Agency for Justice Solutions (the Agency) to launch a Community-Based Legal Aid Project (CLAP).

Tonya Bastian Galanis, principal of EDLS, said the primary purpose of the project is to increase access to justice for members of the public by making legal advice and services more accessible.

“So what makes this project different from any other legal project? We will be leveraging technology and highlighting the increasing importance of technology in the legal profession and two this CLAP project will be mobile in nature and so the mobility of the clinic in our communities will be distinguishing it from other legal aid programmes,” she said yesterday.

Nicole Sutherland King, director of the Legal Aid Clinic at EDLS, said: “I think it is very important that when we consider our access to justice we remember what are the elements. It’s not simply enough that we have in place laws and legal systems, but we need to ensure that our citizenry are aware of their rights and they recognise that the problems that they’re facing may have legal remedies.

“Once they recognise there’s a legal remedy we need to ensure that we empower them so that they can self help when that is an option and so that they know how to navigate the legal system. Finally, we want to ensure that they can receive the assistance of professionals, of legal counsel when that is necessary to ensure that they are not prejudiced in any way in the pursuit of that remedy and so that is the goal of CLAP.”

She added that another step is going take their offices to various communities. Furthermore, they are also going to put together teams of volunteer attorneys, paralegals, law students, IT persons and persons with administrative skills. This team will put together and go into communities to address some of the issues identified in advance. Virtual consultations also will be facilitated.

There will be a launch in mid-June. They also hoped to roll out a pilot programme in the Centreville community

“So we’re piloting for three months here in New Providence. Once we worked out all of the kinks because it is virtual. Once we have our volunteer data populated and worked out all of the kinks there’s nothing to prevent us continuing beginning September, October, November,” the director said.

Attorney General Ryan Pinder said: “The government has through Attorney General’s Office, obtained approval from Cabinet, and identified and come to an agreement to acquire a mobile home that has been utilised in professional work space ready. Its been utilised for architects and engineers in Hurricane Dorian relief throughout Grand Bahama and Abaco became available and we thought it was a tremendous opportunity to acquire that mobile home and have it outfitted as a mobile legal office to where we could have the legal aid clinic through its in house staff, but also through volunteers and with the students that are in the law school to be able to go into the communities and into the communities that most need it to provide access to justice to Bahamians by and large.”