Thanks to a new collaborative effort between Dr Fatou Baldeh, founder of the Gambian CSO Women in Liberation and Leadership (WILL), and Fulbright Specialist Fred Rooney, Gambian lawyers will soon benefit from the country’s first-ever legal incubator. Mr Rooney, a US attorney and global advocate for justice, is currently visiting The Gambia to work with WILL and other stakeholders on how best to launch a legal incubator program here.
Legal incubator programs are designed to give lawyers who eventually venture out on their own enhanced hands-on training to better function well in the courtroom and start and run their own law offices.
Rooney stressed to The Standard that a Gambian incubator would fully comply with any rules, regulations, or guidelines set forth by the Chief Justice, Ministry of Justice, and the Gambian Bar Association.
More importantly, strict compliance will be made to requirements promulgated by the General Legal Council (GLC) since the GLC governs lawyers by regulating admission to practice, professional conduct, and legal education within The Gambia.
After Rooney learned of the world-renowned work to enhance gender justice carried out by Dr Baldeh and WILL, he applied for a Fulbright Specialist grant to gain a deeper understanding of how WILL works and how he can be a catalyst in promoting the WILL model in his work around the world.
According to Rooney, “It is imperative to replicate WILL’s successful efforts to promote the wellbeing of women and girls in The Gambia in countries where violence against women and attacks on their reproductive health puts them in harm’s way.”
Read the full article published in The Standard, Banjul, The Gambia, on March 3, 2025