It was a proud moment for T&T and the family of the country’s former attorney general and minister of legal affairs, Keith Sobion as the memoir titled: The Story of a West Indian Lawyer—Keith Sobion, was launched on December 3 at the Law Faculty of the University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
The book, written by Sobion’s second-born, Justin Sobion, a lawyer and Associate Human Rights Officer in the Office of the President of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, depicts and chronicles the political, academic, personal, and cultural life of the senior Sobion.
Professor Penelope Mathew, Dean of the Auckland Law School, opened the launch. While Family Law Professor Mark Henaghan delivered his perspectives on the memoir.
“I personally found that, for someone who never met my father, he spoke very highly and passionately about him,” Sobion said in an interview.
Henaghan stated these remarks: “The West Indian Lawyer is not only a book about Keith Sobion an outstanding Caribbean lawyer, attorney general, principal of the Norman Manley Law School, husband and father, it is also a brilliantly written story of the evolution of the Caribbean legal system as it finds its own identity, led by Keith Sobion, free from its colonial past and reflects its own vibrant culture. It is also a story about a wonderful Caribbean family and how the values in the family of Keith Sobion and his magnificent and loving wife Judith, produced three sons who are all making highly significant contributions to their society.
Sobion revealed, at the launch, there was also a short video presentation on his father produced by 10 Caribbean Marketing Limited. Virtually, a zoom link for some members of the Sobion family both in T&T and the US was provided so they could view the proceedings live.
Of the memorable event, Sobion told Guardian Media: “In the end, it was a pleasure to share my biography on dad to a New Zealand audience, especially when that audience was an institution involved in professional legal education - one which my father would have also held in high esteem. The audience also had the opportunity to learn more about the first law graduates in the West Indies —the 1975 class of which Keith was a part. And about the history of legal education in the Caribbean—a region literally located on the other side of the world.”
Sobion 40, began writing the 16-chaptered memoir two years after his father’s passing, in 2010, with the perspective that his father’s legacy had to be preserved in some way.
The memoir was first launched in T&T earlier this year.