Press Release
Routledge Modise Law School helps five historically disadvantaged students realise their dreams
5 February 2009
Five law students, who struggled against all odds to finish their law studies, have received bursaries from the Routledge Modise Law School for their practical legal training.
2008 saw the launch of the Routledge Modise Law School. Its main aim is to provide training for candidate attorneys and to satisfy the statutory requirements of attending a practical legal training course approved by the relevant law society for the purposes of admission as an attorney. To this end, the firm has entered into a joint training agreement with Legal Education and Development (LEAD), Law Society of South Africa. Routledge Modise in association with Eversheds is the first firm to present an accredited course in-house, not only to internal but also to external candidates and bursary recipients.
The first year, which was in essence a pilot phase, was a huge success with in-house candidate attorneys achieving an 88% pass rate in the August 2008 admission exams.
Nic Swart, director of LEAD, congratulated the school on the excellent results and said: “The Law Society of South Africa welcomes Routledge Modise’s initiative. Not only is it obviously a well-planned intervention, the firm has opened the door to candidate attorneys from outside the firm to benefit from the training. We value our association with the new school. It will certainly alleviate the pressure on LEAD to create sufficient opportunities at existing courses in the Johannesburg area.”
This year the school opened its doors to external candidate attorneys including five bursary recipients from historically disadvantaged backgrounds.
Jonas Ditsela, Johnson Mokgehle, Decide Makhubele, Phumlani Dlamini and Charles Malatji have more than their law studies in common. Nearly all of them come from large single parent families and, against all odds, succeeded in completing their LLB degrees through loans, bursaries and part-time work.
Says Nicky Sher, who heads up the Routledge Modise Law School: “We were impressed by their strong determination to succeed. They realised that their dreams were still within reach, but that they would have to work harder. Each candidate has his own story of overcoming adversity and we salute them for persevering where most would have given up. We are proud to be associated with them and to help, in a small way, to achieve their dream of becoming a qualified attorney.”
Each candidate is in the process of relocating to Johannesburg in order to attend the PLT course and they are still seeking articles. Any parties interested in assisting in this regard can forward their details to lawschool@eversheds.co.za.