WORK CONTENT AND DESCRIPTION
Work at a Law practice situated in the middle of Negombo. The head Partner is also
an acting magistrate in Negombo and is often in the office. The lawyers you'll work
alongside are very friendly and speak good English. The office is small but professional.
It has air conditioning, two main rooms and a staff of five local lawyers.
Sri Lankan law is based upon two legal systems - 95% of Sri Lankan criminal law
is
based on the British Legal system, the other 5% of their criminal law is based upon
South African law.
KEY ATTRIBUTES OF THE INTERNSHIP:
- Legal research
- Drafting of legal instruments
- Court visits
- Visits to juvenile training centres and other rehabilitation centres for probationers
- Participation in negotiations and client interviews
- The opportunity to compile your own article to be published in a law journal or
national newspaper on a topic of interest, with the assistance of in-house lawyers.
Although they speak Singhalese and Tamil in Sri Lanka, the official language of
law
is English. Most court hearings take place in English, as does all legal documentation.
Much of your work in the office may involve proof reading and drawing on your native
language skills.
You will become involved in the current cases and you will also have the chance
to sit on the bench at local courts observing hearings and trials. There are three
courts in Negombo - the Magistrates Court, the High Court and the District Court.
The Magistrates Court is conducted in Sinhalese, but it is possible that you will
work at both the District Court and the High Court (where murder trials take place)
- both of which conduct the majority of their proceedings in English.These are both
within 2 minutes walking distance of the office and situated practically right on
the beach!
DAILY SCHEDULE:
There is not a typical daily schedule as the placement is tailored around your interests.
If you wish to spend the majority of the time at Court this will be possible, likewise,
if you wish to spend the majority of time in the office this can be arranged.
You'll work from approximately 08:30am to 4:00pm from Monday to Friday. A guide
of
what should be expected is:
The office day starts around 8am and interns will get to go to the Courts some days
where they will sit on the bench and listen to the proceedings. You'll only attend
Court when the proceedings take place in English. For ‘Court days’ you will be in
court from 9-10 am and then again from around 2-3:30pm with a break for lunch in
between. You will then work in the office again until 4.00pm.
On non-Court days you will stay in the office with the lawyers and help with writing
deeds and day-to-day legal duties.
Exactly what your office work will involve will vary from day to day, case to case
and intern to intern. You'll be able to help out with everything that goes on in
the office and you will gain an extraordinary insight into the operations of law
in Sri Lanka - a first-hand insight into international law.
The head partner of the firm is also the acting magistrate. This means he must attend
post-mortems at the mortuary in cases where there is an ambiguous cause of death.
If this is something you are interested in, you are welcome to attend (and please
note, you do not have to attend - the lawyers in the practice are aware that some
interns would find this distressing and would not wish to attend!) If you are interested,
we cannot guarantee that you will be able to attend during your placement (as it
is dependent on the number of post-mortems needed, which, for obvious reasons, we
hope are kept to a minimum!) but on average Godfrey attends the mortuary approximately
once a month.
DAILY SCHEDULE:
You'll work from approximately 09:00am to 17:00pm from Monday to Friday. If you
are required to do alternative hours we may be able to tailor this for you.
Exactly what your work will involve will vary from day-to-day. This project is observation
only – you must not participate in or assist with patient care and/or any other
activity which could put you and/or any other person at risk. There are legal and
Health & Safety reasons for this: To be able to assist hands-on, you would first
need to be in possession of the required qualifications, have the necessary experience
to go with your qualifications, be registered for practising in Sri Lanka, be registered
at the hospital and be insured to practise in Sri Lanka – without all of these things,
you must not participate in any treatment of patients.
You will, of course, be able watch and comment on the proceedings and the staff
will give you commentary and lessons on what is taking place.
If you plan on specialising in a particular field of medicine, we can arrange to
place you in a relevant department, to ensure that you receive maximum experience
in your chosen field.
Lunch times at work is definitely
my favourite time as everyone shares food and the lawyers delight in trying to make
you eat the spiciest food going! It's such a great laugh - the atmosphere is so
relaxed. The Head Lawyer is such a friendly and accommodating man! He is extremely
successful (he has published many papers concerning child rights and has worked
for the UN) yet he remains humble! I have spent many nights eating with his family
(which includes some of the lawyers from the firm - his nephew and his brother)
who are great company. I have even been shopping with his daughters.
Overall it has been a wonderful experience and I am not at all ready
to go home on Friday - I will miss them all very much indeed.
Haley Smith