In her more than four decades of practising law, president of the Law Association of TT (LATT) Lynette Seebaran-Suite has been an advocate for the rights of women, children and vulnerable groups.
Among some of the topics she has tackled are land tenants’ rights, domestic violence, sexual harassment in the workplace, disability in the workplace, abortion law reform, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Seebaran-Suite, 69, graduated from the UWI Faculty of Law in 1975 and the Hugh Wooding Law School in 1977, and has been practising for 46 years. She was called to the Bar in 1977 and specialises in family law.
After graduating in 1977 she started working as a legal research officer at the Law Reform Commission where, for 18 months, she helped to revise and update the country’s 1976 laws. Then, in 1980, she was invited to enter private practice in chambers headed by Michael De La Bastide, QC.
[caption id="attachment_1015862" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Law Association president Lynette Seebaran-Suite gets her letter of appointment as senior counsel from President Christine Kangaloo on May 12 at the Office of the President. PHOTO COURTESY OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT -[/caption]
“From a very early age, through a combination of factors – natural inclination, encouragement of my spouse, Professor emeritus of UWI Winston Suite, the example of my parents – I began advocacy and research in the international women’s movement and education of the public on things legal.”
She said both her parents were activists – her father in politics and his community in Caroni Village, and her mother as a trade unionist and in her credit union – so she grew up around the ideas of social consciousness and public service. Her father retired as a permanent secretary in the Ministry of National Security and her mother, who died in May, was one of the founding members of TT Association of Retired Persons. Seebaran-Suite said she always took notice of her father’s dominion over her mother even though they were equally educated.
In her quest to educate the public, she was often a guest on TTT journalist Tony Deyal’s 6.30 pm talk show Issues and Ideas. There she explained the new Family Law, Status of Children, and Sexual Offences Acts to the public. The changes included the introduction of consensual divorce and the idea of marital rape, a child’s status of illegitimacy to inheritance was abolished and a method where paternity could be established was determined.
[caption id="attachment_1019503" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Lynette Seebaran-Suite was called to the Bar in 1977 and specialises in family law. - Jeff Mayers[/caption]
In the 1980s, she did some training within the medical profession surrounding testing for HIV/ Aids and people’s rights such as the ethics and principles of requiring informed consent, confidentiality, and pre and post-test counselling. In 1992, she left the chambers of De La Bastide to form her own law firm, Seebaran Lynette and Co, and in 2012, she was given a national award for W
