The Next Generation Of Lawyers: Opportunities And Emerging Areas Of Law
Students at the School of Law have appreciated the initiative by Makerere Law Society (MLS) for organizing a career fair that has opened their minds to the available opportunities in the profession.
In an interaction with the students after the event held at the School of Law Friday 29th April 2019, students indicated that a number of them were at cross roads in as far as career choices were concerned given the limited guidance opportunities available to them.
Makerere Law Society, an umbrella student’s association in the School of Law in conjunction with Katende Sempebwa and Company advocates a renowned law firm in the country organized a career fair at the school of law with the objective of creating awareness about the available opportunities to students and what they needed to do to be able to be successful in the legal profession. The theme of the event was, The next generation of Lawyers: Opportunities and emerging areas of Law.
The Students were addressed by senior partners in Katende Sempeebwa & Company Advocates (KATS) a leading law firms with over 50 years of operation. One of the keynote speakers Mr. Sim Katende advised the students to be cautious while applying for placement for Internship and clerkship saying that in many instances the places of internship offer good raining opportunities and serve as the first places of work for those that take the exercise seriously.
He advised the students to make all efforts to make their internship experience worthwhile by interacting with everybody at the place of work and volunteering to undertake tasks diligently. ‘have an open mind to learning, keep learning, it does not matter what you are reading as long as you are looking for something new, he counselled the law student, adding that people who are going to succeed are those willing to read widely.
While commenting about the Law School Pre entry exams, Mr. Sim Katende said the pre entry exams were largely about general knowledge and that this was important preparation for a law student because in practice, while talking to a client it was important that one exhibited high level of understanding of the subject matter and issues surrounding them.
He said what clients want is a lawyer who is available, friendly and with ability to get along with clients. ‘You may have no interest in football but because it is an interesting subject for many that include your clients, you must read about football in order to be informed about it’ he said while emphasizing the importance of understanding ones clientele. He said the world was in search for good lawyers and asked the law students to strive to be the best they can.
While addressing himself to the teaching methodologies in the law school, Katende proposed a balance between theory and practical exposures and commended the trend that the school of law has taken in mainstreaming practical skills that are a must have for the students.
“As human beings we have potential but end up being mediocre and think of the basics like having a car, a house as success” she said. She castigated the culture of complaining about everything adding that for her, she made effort to finding solutions to issues. She advised the students to go out and explore other disciplines in order to boost their profession, sying that in her case, she joined Rotary Club at an early age and the kind of project work she was involved in helped her greatly.
She cautioned them against fear, which she described as a hinderance for people to venture into the unknown. “Be ready to fail and once it happens, stand up and move on” she counselled.
