Law Faculty’s Town and Gown gala dinner

Mr Z Ngqeza of the Black Lawyers Association, the Deputy Minister of Justice and Correctional Services John Jeffery MP and Executive Dean of Law of NMMU,  Prof Vivienne Lawack, the driving force behind the faculty's first social Town and Gown initiative 

It’s an antiquated term – “town and gown”, but it’s one that perfectly captures Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s Law Faculty great new social initiative.

The coming together of law academics and legal practitioners at a Town and Gown gala dinner is a wonderful idea for so many reasons.

(As an aside, “town and gown”, which dates back to the Middle Ages, identifies two distinct communities within a university town or city – “town” being the non-academic population and “gown” being the academics from the university.)

Last night’s initiative by our go-getting Dean of Law Prof Vivienne Lawack was to bring these two communities together in a less formal environment for the benefit of all involved.

It’s a first for the Law Faculty.

But, from the response, it certainly isn’t going to be the last.

And it may even set a trend for other faculties to follow. Yes, it was that successful.

It was successful because it:

• Met a need
• Brought like-minded, committed individuals together in a relaxed environment
• Had an ideal guest speaker (Deputy Minister of Justice John Jeffery)
• Was well organised
• Was professional and sophisticated
• Was focused on specific objectives
• Was sponsored, thereby removing the usual financial headache
• Is a pro-active initiative to make things better

Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic Prof Denise Zinn opened the evening at the Radisson Blu Hotel and set a warm and engaging tone for the evening. She highlighted the university’s values and objectives of the event to “serve, build and regenerate the value of the legal sector” and kick-start “a long collegial engagement” between town and gown.

Paul Geswindt, Quinton Johnson, Wilmon Steyn
 from sponsors Nedbank and Shuaib Rahim attended the function

Guests were strategically placed at tables to ensure that the law academics, law students, sponsor representatives from Nedbank and practicing members of the legal profession mingled, all for each other’s benefit.

After all, reminded Prof Lawack, there’s no such thing as a “free supper”.

After thanking legal practitioners and others who are already supporting NMMU’s Law Faculty in various ventures, she urged the rest to get involved in ensuring the future success of the profession.

Her words echoed those of the minister who, as the keynote speaker, gave his legal eagle audience an overview of recent legal changes and some sobering statistics on the present status of the profession.

These included:

• The majority of law graduates are African women
• Of the 22 476 practicing attorneys in South Africa today, 14 385 are male (the majority of whom are white) and 8 102 females
• Grave concerns about the quality of law graduates by the present profession
• The high dropout rate of law students (only 25% of all students complete their degree in the minimum time, despite various interventions to change this over the past decade)
• That changing the LLB to a five-year programme from the present four-year qualification needs to be seriously debated
• That the legal profession should never be “just another business” but a calling, a vocation.

While there are many negatives, initiatives like the “Town and Gown” gala dinner will go a long way to adding value to our legal fraternity and the future of the profession.

So kudos all round!

The organising committee (from left) Leander Kruger, Anneli van Heerden, Andrea Buchanan, Marc Welgemoed, Adv Shuaib Rahim and David Abrahams

Joining the Deputy Minster of Justice John Jeffery and Executive Dean of Law Prof Vivienne Lawack were Hlomela Bucwa, NMMU's new SRC president and a third-year law student and Nathi Dwayi, Black Lawyer's Association SC Chairperson and the Law Faculty Rep for 2015