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More Lawyers now joining Legal Aid - Ali

August 22, 2019 4:50 pm

The mindset of lawyers in Fiji not wanting to join the Legal Aid Commission has rapidly changed due to the work done by the commission over the years.

While presenting during the Regional Legal Aid Conference at the InterContinental Resort, Legal Aid Commission’s Acting Director Shahin Ali says they now have the largest law firm in the country which continues to grow.

“We are creating a career path within and you heard from the AG earlier that people did not want to join Legal Aid. It was something that lawyers did not want to take up as a job firstly because we did not pay them well or couldn’t afford to and plus there was always a tag that these guys provide services for free so they were not competent enough or they were not good as the others so these were the tags that we had to live with up until a few years ago.”

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Ali also highlighted that previously during recruitment they would only receive one application however during their last intake, they had 60 lawyers applying.

With 19 branches around the country, the commission will open another three offices in the outer islands.