Af­ter weeks of con­tro­ver­sy and scan­dal, a new pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion will be an­nounced to­day in the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain. The can­di­dates-Stan­ley Mar­cus, Seenath Jair­man and Is­rael Khan, all Se­nior Coun­sel-are con­fi­dent of win­ning. Vy­ing for the post of vice pres­i­dent are at­tor­neys Pa­tri­cia Dindyal and Neal Bis­nath. Ly­dia Men­don­ca, An­drew Ra­haman and Ha­ran Ramkarans­ingh are con­test­ing for trea­sur­er. Khan said he be­lieved vic­to­ry was al­ready in the bag and many lawyers were on his side. Khan al­so called for greater ac­count­abil­i­ty of funds. Jairam has main­tained his de­ci­sion to run for the pres­i­den­cy stemmed from pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and the de­sire to up­lift the le­gal pro­fes­sion.

"I be­lieve I have a pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the pro­fes­sion and an oblig­a­tion to the younger at­tor­neys to pro­vide guid­ance, lead­er­ship and to up­lift the stan­dards of the Bar," he added. He al­so called for prop­er meth­ods to be im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure greater trans­paren­cy. Mar­cus, who was not as vo­cal about win­ning as Khan, said he in­tend­ed to im­prove the con­di­tions un­der which lawyers worked. The as­so­ci­a­tion's for­mer pres­i­dent Dana See­ta­hal, SC, re­signed on May 7. All oth­er coun­cil mem­bers al­so of­fered their res­ig­na­tions to the mem­ber­ship af­ter $284,000 went miss­ing from the as­so­ci­a­tion's ac­counts.