Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

From type­writ­ers to com­put­ers, phys­i­cal court­rooms to vir­tu­al ones, Ed­win Roop­nar­ine—the coun­try’s longest-prac­tic­ing at­tor­ney—has seen it all.

“Law has giv­en me mean­ing for my life. It has giv­en me a deep mean­ing for my life,” Roop­nar­ine said proud­ly.

In an in­ter­view at his law cham­bers, Roop­nar­ine & Com­pa­ny, on Lord Street, San Fer­nan­do, he spoke about his ex­pe­ri­ences—both neg­a­tive and pos­i­tive—in­clud­ing his jour­ney to Eng­land by boat to study law.

“That was an in­ter­est­ing jour­ney in it­self. I met a lot of friends,” said Roop­nar­ine, who has been in ac­tive prac­tice for six decades.

He said he was in­spired to join the pro­fes­sion by his el­der broth­er, the late Er­rol Roop­nar­ine, a High Court judge and So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al.

Liv­ing on Gor­don Street, close to the High Court and Mag­is­trates’ Court, he of­ten saw lawyers and bar­ris­ters in their wigs and gowns. Roop­nar­ine said he felt en­chant­ed watch­ing them, be­liev­ing they were well re­spect­ed, which made him ea­ger to join the pro­fes­sion.

At 21, he gave up his teach­ing ca­reer and trav­elled to Eng­land.

“I left teach­ing, and I trav­elled to Eng­land. I will not de­scribe it as a ba­nana boat; it was a boat jour­ney to Lon­don. It was over ten days trav­el­ling by sea. In Eng­land, I had to de­scribe my­self as one of the Win­drush gen­er­a­tion per­sons be­cause I reached Eng­land some­time late Ju­ly 1959.”

Find­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion was dif­fi­cult at first, as many places re­fused to house West In­di­ans and oth­er peo­ple of colour, but they even­tu­al­ly found some­where to stay.

Be­fore join­ing Mid­dle Tem­ple, one of the four Inns of Court, his first job was as a stock clerk at a wine mer­chant’s shop. He al­so re­called form­ing the Tri­dent Crick­et Club, of which he was the chair­man.

Af­ter grad­u­at­ing and be­ing called to the de­gree of the Ut­ter Bar in Mid­dle Tem­ple Hall in Feb­ru­ary 1965, he re­turned to Trinidad on June 24, where he was ad­mit­ted to prac­tice and has re­mained ac­tive ever since. Al­though he prac­ticed crim­i­nal law ear­ly in his ca­reer, he did not en­joy it and even­tu­al­ly chose to fo­cus ex­clu­sive­ly on civ­il law.

“I have been very for­tu­nate in the law, in that I have ap­peared be­fore every chief jus­tice in Trinidad and To­ba­go, start­ing with Sir Hugh Wood­ing to our present Chief Jus­tice Mr Ivor Archie. I have ap­peared be­fore every judge in the courts of Trinidad and To­ba­go who sat in the civ­il ju­ris­dic­tion.”

De­spite his ac­com­plish­ments, Roop­nar­ine said he has al­ways shown re­spect to every­one.

“I’ve al­ways treat­ed every­one with the great­est re­spect. A judge of the high­est lev­el or the jan­i­tor—they are equal in my eyes be­cause I re­spect each and every per­son. In the law, I’ve al­ways felt it to be a learn­ing process be­cause I win some and lose some, but I great­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the lessons.”

Com­ment­ing on vir­tu­al hear­ings in­tro­duced since COVID-19, he said they have ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. While many mat­ters can be done vir­tu­al­ly with­out any is­sues, he not­ed that phys­i­cal hear­ings of­fer more per­son­al con­nec­tion, ca­ma­raderie, and a bet­ter sense of hu­man in­ter­ac­tion.

“There is more ca­ma­raderie when you meet some­one phys­i­cal­ly than when you meet some­one over the screen,” he said.

He es­tab­lished his law firm in April 1988, and two of his sons, Shawn and Ted Roop­nar­ine, fol­lowed in his foot­steps, while his oth­er son, Dr Robin Roop­nar­ine is a med­ical prac­ti­tion­er.

It would ap­pear that re­tire­ment is not on the hori­zon for Roop­nar­ine, who be­lieves he can still serve his com­mu­ni­ty by re­main­ing in ac­tive prac­tice. Roop­nar­ine shared that the law has giv­en his life great mean­ing, and in re­turn, he has giv­en ser­vice to his com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try.

Roop­nar­ine has been in­volved in var­i­ous forms of civ­il lit­i­ga­tion, from mat­ri­mo­ni­al to all hu­man rights and fun­da­men­tal free­dom-re­lat­ed mat­ters.

His ad­vice to young at­tor­neys? Al­ways re­spect the judge, re­spect fel­low lawyers, and up­hold the rule of law.