Derek Achong

A High Court judge yes­ter­day ad­vised a group of new lawyers to be mind­ful of their so­cial me­dia posts which he said may af­fect their fu­ture in the le­gal pro­fes­sion.This was the ad­vice of Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip, as he ad­dressed a group of 80 new lawyers who were called to the Bar dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Con­vo­ca­tion Hall, Hall of Jus­tice, Knox Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Holdip said: "Pri­vate and pro­fes­sion lives are in­ex­tri­ca­bly linked. You have a sin­gle life's jour­ney with­in a world where so­cial me­dia and Face­book has en­snared all of us."He asked the new lawyers to pay at­ten­tion to their posts and pho­tos be­ing up­loaded on the In­ter­net, as they may be ex­am­ined by their po­ten­tial em­ploy­ers, who now re­quire copies of their so­cial me­dia pages on their re­sumes.

"The word pri­va­cy is now be­com­ing old Eng­lish and soon to be ex­tinct, as we are be­ing in­flict­ed with the dis­ease of over­ex­po­sure and lack of dis­cern­ment and we, as keep­ers of the law, are charged with en­forc­ing pa­ra­me­ters in this con­ser­v­a­tive pro­fes­sion."He said the pil­lars of the le­gal pro­fes­sion are hon­esty, in­tegri­ty and ethics and that they should be ob­served ab­solute­ly in or­der to pre­serve the no­bil­i­ty of the pro­fes­sion.

Yes­ter­day's call to the Bar was the largest ever in the ju­di­cia­ry's his­to­ry, with 165 lawyers be­ing ad­mit­ted. Due to space con­straints at the Hall of Jus­tice, the pro­ce­dure had to be split in­to two events yes­ter­day, with one be­ing held in the morn­ing and the oth­er in the af­ter­noon.

While ad­dress­ing the new lawyers and their rel­a­tives, Holdip ad­vised them to prac­tise with dig­ni­ty and cour­tesy. He en­cour­aged them to raise ob­jec­tions in court in in­stances of "per­ceived un­fair­ness or un­ju­di­cial be­hav­iour" but warned them not to be too ag­gres­sive."The right to ob­ject strong­ly and force­ful­ly must nev­er be un­der­stood as con­fer­ring or em­brac­ing a right to be rude or of­fen­sive."

Holdip ex­plained that as part of their new pro­fes­sion, they should en­gage in non-prof­it ini­tia­tives and or­gan­i­sa­tions to "ad­vance the in­ter­ests of the dis­ad­van­taged.""Al­ways re­main skep­ti­cal about the re­la­tion­ship be­tween law and jus­tice. Too of­ten law serves pow­er at the ex­pense of the vul­ner­a­ble. Le­gal rules too of­ten re­in­force class di­vi­sions and bol­ster the priv­i­leged," Holdip said.

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie al­so spoke briefly dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny and, like Holdip, he ad­vised the new lawyers to al­ways con­sid­er the rights of the dis­ad­van­taged over the need for fi­nan­cial gain."Com­mit­ment to ser­vice has large­ly been over­tak­en by greed and sim­ply prof­it. How the so­ci­ety will de­vel­op as we move for­ward in the next sev­er­al years will de­pend on what at­ti­tude you take to the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that is be­ing placed on you," he said.

Archie said it was an ex­cit­ing time to be a lawyer be­cause of re­form with­in the ju­di­cia­ry and al­so be­cause the prac­tice of law was ex­pand­ing to ar­eas it did not ex­ist be­fore.