The Bahamas Bar Association (BBA) is getting ready to have elections for an executive board in the next several months.
According to current BBA President, Ruth Bowe-Darville, notices for nominations will be sent out to members in May.
“While I have not seen nominations at yet, the winds have it that there are three contenders for president,” she told the Bahama Journal in a recent interview.
“The first is Elsworth Johnson, who currently serves as the vice president and has been working very hard to make the Bar better. The other contenders are Dr. Peter Maynard, who is a past president and Kathleen Hassan, who is also a past vice president and has served on the council.”
While she did not say if she would offer herself again, Mrs. Bowe-Darville said there is nothing that prevents her from offering herself again.
She also spoke to the Journal about her accomplishments over the past four years.
“I served for two terms from 2009 to the present,” Mrs. Bowe-Darville said.
“While I have not accomplished all that I’ve set out to do, I’ve still accomplished much. I think the major accomplishment is the acquisition of the property where the new Bar Office sits. The other aspect of my tenure that we have made strides with is the disciplinary measures concerning lawyers. I started out saying that I wanted to restructure and rehabilitate the Bar. I think I’ve achieved that through a process, not only by strengthening the disciplinary tribunal process and having matters dealt with, but also by way of affording my members educational programmes.”
She said there have been many seminars hosted by the Bar on various legal matters and other issues.
“We have also been able to facilitate what is now known as a Brown Bag Lunch on a Wednesday for about an hour or hour and a half where we not only discuss legal topics but brought in members from the business community to educate our lawyers about insurance, financial planning, obtaining professional loans and that sort of thing,” Mrs. Bowe-Darville said.
“We have also been able to have continuous committees of the bar including the educational committee, real estate section committee, legislative committee, a criminal section committee and a junior bar section that’s all working. The ultimate aim is that members of the Bar feel more apart of the association which they pay dues. They are interacting more, networking more and getting more for the dues which they are paying and I just hope that whoever comes will continue that because I personally feel that the bar has moved up several notches.”
The BBA president admitted that the association has “bad apples.”
“We’re dealing with those and I’d like to say that they are in the minority,” Mrs. Bowe-Darville said.
“The bulk of the Bar is by far forming the greatest professional body that we have in The Bahamas. They have been living up to their traditional reputation of being very good lawyers, upstanding citizens of the country, contributing members and that’s what I have been impressing upon them.”
