Ensuring equal access to the law profession for bright young graduates
When walking into new lawyer Praveena Sukhraj’s office you can’t miss the smile upon her face. As a blind black lawyer she has overcome enormous odds. Were it not for the scholarship Praveena received through a USAID-funded program to help law graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds to secure practical legal training, she and 379 fellow black lawyers would not be practicing law today.
The Black Lawyer’s Association seeks to improve the legal profession in South Africa by enhancing human capacity and promoting equity within the legal sector. The odds stacked against disadvantaged law graduates attending universities in South Africa are immense. Students must complete their studies at established law firms by writing legal memoranda, but they are often turned away because partners are unwilling to sponsor disadvantaged graduates. Thousands of black lawyers complete their studies only to struggle with the funding required to study for the bar exam. Many accept menial labor and are forced to withdraw from the profession.
In early 1998, the Black Lawyer’s Association partnered with five of South Africa’s most renowned legal institutions to establish The Placement Scheme, a program to help sponsor law candidates in private firms, state attorneys offices, and law clinics while they studied for the bar exam. The partnership itself set a precedent. USAID supported the program.
More than 3,000 applications for 240 slots flooded in after advertisements were placed at disadvantaged universities. Forty percent of applicants were women. For more than a year the consortium utilized its vast networks, monitored the progress of candidates in training at firms and helped relieve the financial worries of candidates like Praveena.
Praveena Sukhraj did not follow the usual track of a law student. She would have liked to complete her studies with the writing of memoranda. Even with 19 distinctions on her record, countless established law firms cited her handicap as reason to deny her placement, robbing her of the practical experience of writing legal memoranda prior to taking the bar exam. Praveena decided to risk taking the bar exam without first gaining practical experience at a law firm. She needed to support not only herself during six-months of intense study, but also an assistant to carry out five months of reading for her. A special computer, voice software and a Braille printer and paper added to the costs.
When asked why she should be awarded the scholarship, Praveena told the selection committee, “I have to buy the equipment to become a sighted person.” Like many of the program’s beneficiaries, Praveena passed the bar exam with honors.
Her energy is infectious. At just 24, Praveena practices administrative law, teaches commercial law at her alma mater and is earning a Ph.D. in public policy. In ten years time she hopes to be in Parliament drafting legislation as well as teaching. “Without subsidy from the Black Lawyers Association, I’d never have come out of study on equal footing with everyone else”, she says.
The Placement Scheme allowed 105 candidate lawyers to be sponsored for training at the School for Legal Practice and to receive funding for over a year while writing memoranda at legal firms. One hundred and thirty-nine young law graduates were sponsored while studying for the bar exam. Now practicing lawyers, many contribute pro-bono legal services to their communities through law clinics and their own practices.
In a little more than three years, the Placement Scheme significantly increased the numbers of previously disadvantaged law graduates practicing in South Africa. For the first time, candidate law graduates from rural areas were acknowledged as beneficiaries of a support program. Two of the program staff members who were law graduates who were never able to gain placement at a law firm completed their exams as program employees. The consortium that carried out the Placement Scheme hopes to continue to meet the needs of South Africa’s disadvantaged law graduates.
