LAWYERS school Paralegals on good practice

By Bampia Bundu

Legal Access through Women Yearning for Equality, Rights and Social Justice (LAWYERS) on Thursday, May 10, concluded a three day training session for Paralegals at their Percival Street office in Freetown.

Speaking to this press, the Assistant Treasurer the organisation who also serves as the Project Coordinator for the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), Lawyer Christiana Davies-Cole, said the training was designed to help capacitate Paralegals to effectively carry out their work.

She explained that the Paralegals are being trained to help victims of violence either by seeking justice through prosecution or doing out of Court settlements through mediations. She noted that Paralegals are not Lawyers and so they do not do the work of Lawyers but they sometimes fill in the gaps for Lawyers especially when they are not around.

According to her, the training is expected to improve on the work of Paralegals and make their work much easier in handling issues like sexual abuse, domestic violence and other related misdemeanours.

She disclosed that the training which brought together Paralegals from Kenema, Kono and Freetown, heard presentations from female Lawyers on topics like how government works, international human rights law, laws in Sierra Leone and advocacy approaches.