The crest of the Hugh Wood­ing Law School in St Au­gus­tine fea­tures two sup­port­ers, one male and one fe­male, which is said to rep­re­sent "the foun­da­tion of West In­di­an fam­i­ly life and de­pict the idea of the law be­ing made by and for the peo­ple".

This ra­tio of one male and one fe­male fea­tured on the law school's crest was, how­ev­er, not present dur­ing its grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny held on Sat­ur­day night at the Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­tre (SPEC) of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies' St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

For every one male grad­u­ate who crossed the stage on Sat­ur­day night there were as many as three fe­males do­ing like­wise.

In all 47 males crossed the stage to col­lect their Le­gal Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (LEC) from the law school.

A to­tal of 185 grad­u­ates were list­ed.

The fe­males al­so dom­i­nat­ed the awards and prizes pre­sent­ed to the grad­u­ates.

Crys­tal Brave­boy-Chetram from Grena­da copped the cov­et­ed Cer­tifi­cate of Mer­it which is award­ed to a stu­dent who ob­tains 'A' grades in at least nine of the 11 cours­es.

Brave­boy-Chetram al­so re­ceived three oth­er prizes in­clud­ing the Most Out­stand­ing Stu­dent Over Two Years.

Arya Red­head al­so from Grena­da was not to be out­done her com­pa­tri­ot Brave­boy-Chetram.

Apart from be­ing named on the Prin­ci­pal's Roll of Ho­n­our for at­tain­ing 'A' grades in at least six of the 11 cours­es, Red­head re­ceived six oth­er prizes in­clud­ing Most Out­stand­ing Year Two Stu­dent.

Red­head al­so de­liv­ered a speech on be­half of the grad­u­ates.

The four oth­er stu­dents list­ed on the Prin­ci­pal's Roll of Ho­n­our were al­so fe­male.

They were Crys­tal Paul from Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ash­ley Hen­ry from Guyana, Kim­ber­ley May­ers from Bar­ba­dos and Al­githa Riche­lieu from St Lu­cia.

Se­nior Coun­sel Regi­nald Ar­mour, the chair­man of the Coun­cil of Le­gal Ed­u­ca­tion, pre­sent­ed the grad­u­ates with their cer­tifi­cates.

Prin­ci­pal of the Hugh Wood­ing Law School Miri­am Samaru said the stu­dents dur­ing the Le­gal Aid Clin­ic were able to as­sist more than 1,000 peo­ple who were un­able to ac­cess le­gal ser­vices.

"They may have groaned and com­plained about the amount of work that they were re­quired to do in the Le­gal Aid Clin­ic, how­ev­er, to­geth­er with the 10 at­tor­neys at the clin­ic they pro­vid­ed as­sis­tance to over 1,000 clients who would not have been able to oth­er­wise ac­cess le­gal ser­vices," Samaru said.

Lean­na Ramkha­lawan from Trinidad and To­ba­go re­ceived the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) prize for show­ing the most ded­i­ca­tion to the Le­gal Aid Clin­ic.

Samaru said the Le­gal Aid Clin­ic as well as the oth­er chal­lenges the stu­dents faced dur­ing their stud­ies were the "build­ing blocks for the de­vel­op­ment of the blue­print of their ca­reers".

Jus­tice Win­ston An­der­son, a judge of the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), who de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress called on the grad­u­ates to nev­er for­get the Code of Ethics of the pro­fes­sion.

An­der­son said lawyers in the re­gion are of­ten paint­ed with a "neg­a­tive brush" of be­ing un­scrupu­lous, lazy and un­pro­fes­sion­al.

He said while there are "un­doubt­ed­ly bad ap­ples in the le­gal pro­fes­sion" the wide­spread crit­i­cism is un­war­rant­ed.

He called on the young lawyers to put their en­er­gy in­to mak­ing a dif­fer­ence and al­ways re­mem­ber their Code of Ethics.

"Study the code, even though you al­ready passed the ethics ex­am, keep a copy close to hand, per­haps on your bed­side ta­ble, make it your creed, give it your word of ho­n­our, live by it, this one sim­ple step can en­sure your suc­cess in the pro­fes­sion," An­der­son said.

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, as well as High Court Judges Frank Seep­er­sad and Kevin Ram­cha­ran were al­so present at the cer­e­mo­ny.