The American Caribbean Law Initiative (ACLI) 2021 Caribbean Law Clinic and Conference

Kirk Bengochea was called to practise as an attorney-at-law in Trinidad & Tobago in 2009. Since that time, the focus of his practice has been Civil Litigation where he acts as Advocate Counsel. His experience spans over 10 years having conducted matters at the High Court and Court of Appeal in Trinidad and Tobago as well as the Privy Council level. His legal expertise covers claims dealing with personal injuries, insurance claims, breach of contract, land disputes, medical negligence, construction law, employment law and libel and slander and handle a wide range of claims in specific these areas. Beyond litigation, he has a diverse set of skills in mediation and negotiation and also regularly provides advice on company law and commercial matters.

He has served on the Law Council of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago and has taught at the Sir Hugh Wooding Law School as an adjunct tutor. He also holds a Bachelors in Arts for English Literature from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. Kirk Bengochea is the Founder of Civil Watch which is a blog dedicated to civil procedure and practice education and functions as one of its main contributing writers and editors.

Michael Bromby is a senior lecturer at the Truman Bodden Law School in the Cayman Islands. He teaches on an English law degree which is delivered through the University of Liverpool in the UK.

He has over 20 years’ experience of teaching law in the UK, and led the national teaching strategy for law at the Higher Education Academy, in conjunction with all UK law schools. His research interests include criminal law, identification and evidence as well as pedagogical approaches to legal education.

Hilary A. Creary received her B.A. and J.D. from Nova Southeastern University.  She practices in all areas of family law, and is also a Guardian ad Litem and Family Law Mediator.  Ms. Creary’s philosophy in life is “Tikkun Olam” – the repair of the world.” To that end she believes in giving back to the legal community.  She is currently a member of the Florida Bar Board of Governors representing the 17^th Circuit, and has held leadership positions in multiple voluntary Bar Associations including T. J. Reddick Bar Association, and the Broward County Women Lawyers Association, the Gwen S. Cherry Black Women Lawyers Association, the Caribbean Bar Association, and is a founding member and Legal Advisor to the Jamaican Women of Florida organization, which is dedicated to educating and empowering Jamaican Women.  She also believes in supporting her larger community and received the 2018 Florida Bar President’s Award for Pro Bono Service in the 17^th Judicial Circuit for her tireless representation of clients who could not otherwise afford legal services.  When she is not representing clients, or mediating family law matters, in her “spare” time Ms. Creary is the legal advisor to the Greater Pompano Beach Margate and Lighthouse Point Chamber of Commerce.  Hilary and her husband Daryl, are the proud parents of Charles, Diona and David, and doting grandparents of Gavin.

Sharo-Ann Chisholm is a graduate of the University of the West Indies in Mona where she pursued her Bachelors of Laws Degree Program with honours. Subsequently she attended the Norman Manley Law School where she obtained her Legal Education Certificate. Whilst at the law school, she was involved in student leadership and has represented the institution at the American Caribbean Law Initative Clinic in Florida.

Sharo-Ann was called to the Jamaican Bar in 2017 and her practice areas are corporate, commercial and technology law.

Her affiliations include the Jamaica Alumni Association and the Meadowbrook High School Past Students Association where she currently serves as President.

Camara Williams is a Florida attorney, and community organizer. He has extensive legal experience in Constitutional law, civil rights, criminal law, business, contract, transactional law, labor, employment, federal and state law. Specifically, he experience dealing in franchises from both the legal and ownership side. In business he has counseled corporate clients regarding a wide range of matters; including compliance with federal and state regulations, contract lease negotiations and corporate governance issues. He has also negotiated high end buyouts and corporate transfers. His passion and specialization is in the areas of probate and estate planning.

His estate planning and probate practice revolves around not only professional experiences, but personal as well. In the professional world he has handled multi-million dollar probates and multi-level complicated estate plans. Including for trust for non-profit organizations, and families. Camara has constructed seven and eight figure estate plans for clients around the world. Personally, Camara believes in securing wealth within the black community by creating a wealth plans that benefit the family. His personal family story involves an attorney stealing millions of dollars from the family estate. An event that had an indelible effect on his family, him personally and focus his practice to ensure this would never happen to another person, family or organization.

His criminal experience extends to handling major publicized federal and state cases. He has handled cases ranging from drug trafficking - drug possession, murder -manslaughter cases, robbery with a firearm, burglary, assault and battery, credit card fraud, social security fraud Medicaid fraud, DUI’s, violation of probations and community control.

His Constitutional law background extends to litigating cases in for employment and civil rights cases surrounding 1^st and 4^th Amendment protections. His cases have been deemed successful against U.S. Government, State of Florida and the City of Orlando.

In the central Florida community, he has served in a number of local charity boards, including several committees located in the Central Florida.  He has organized and participated in legal forums where they discussed the laws surrounding Same Sex Marriage, Immigration, Social Justice Issues. Not has his writings have been featured in national publications, Camara Williams has a blog and podcast (The Uncultured Bias Podcast), both of which can be found his personal website camarawilliams.com. His podcast can be found on Apple and Spotify.

He has had many public speaking engagements and has been a guest lecturer at colleges and universities within the state of Florida.

Attorney Williams has a high interest in law, policy, government as well as business and contract law, with a focus on how they are all interrelated in our society.  Attorney Camara Williams also has a personal goal of seeing the increase of interest within the African-American community with regards to governance and activism especially within the Central Florida community.

He is a class 4 Fellow in the Florida Bar Leadership program. A select program where the Florida Bar identifies, selects and trains future leaders within the legal profession and throughout the State of Florida.

He is an active member of his church Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Oviedo, where he served as the youngest member of the Board of Trustees. He also a proud member Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Camara envisions himself as an advocate for the community, as well as an organizer intent on bringing people and their ideas together. His personal life consists three constants, which is faith, family and friendships. He a is proud son of Peter and Paulette Williams, who were once immigrants but received full American citizenship. He is happily married to Ivory Williams, a native of Central Florida and graduate from Jones High School and a graduate of USF with a degree in Business Administration. Together they have two wonderful daughters in Niara and Liana Williams. He believes in community and hard work, and feels that when the two are combined NOTHING is impossible.

He lives by three quotes “Why do I work so hard? Because I want to make it look easy”, “A Man who stands for nothing, falls for anything” and “Faith without work is dead”.

In 2016 he became the sitting President for the Orange County Bar Association Foundation, the youngest person and the FIRST African American to hold that seat in the organizations history. In both 2018, and 2019 he was recognized by Super Lawyers magazine as a “Rising Star” within the legal profession.

He received his Bachelor’s Degree in History with a minor in communications from Sacramento State University where he ran Track and Field. In 2008 he earned his Juris Doctorate Degree (J.D.) from the Florida A&M College of Law. His legal thesis focused on the constitutional rights of emancipated Black Americans and Native Americans, post reconstruction.

Harold F. Pryor was elected Broward State Attorney (Florida’s 17^th Judicial Circuit) in November 2020. He leads a staff of 462 employees, including 213 prosecutors, whose mission is to make our community safer while working to ensure justice, equity and fairness for everyone affected by our criminal justice system. He is the first Black state attorney in Broward and the first Black man to be elected state attorney in Florida.

Pryor is a fifth-generation Floridian. He is married to an attorney and they have a young son.

Pryor attended and graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. He received the Department of Political Science’s Multicultural Scholar of the Year award. Due to his exemplary service in student government and his work with the Center for Leadership & Development, Pryor was inducted into Florida Blue Key, the state’s oldest and most prestigious leadership honor society. Pryor graduated from Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law where he was a member of the Nova Trial Association and junior staff editor for the International Law Students Association’s Journal of International & Comparative Law. His law school classmates chose him to deliver the graduation commencement address.

Pryor’s legal career includes experience as a prosecutor, a civil attorney in private practice, and as a corporate lawyer. He started his legal career serving as a Broward assistant state attorney, prosecuting serious criminal offenses in the Felony Trial Unit. He also worked for prominent law firms and for a telecommunications company, specializing in business litigation, the Federal Communications Commission, consumer-related issues, employment law, and commercial transactions. He earned a reputation as a skilled trial lawyer who is tough but fair. He believes in compassion for victims. Pryor strongly believes that securing a guilty verdict should never be a prosecutor’s primary goal but that the pursuit of truth, fairness and justice should be paramount.

Pryor is a past president of the historic T.J. Reddick Bar Association, Broward County’s Black bar association. Pryor also campaigned to persuade the Broward County commission to rename the North Wing of the courthouse in honor of the late Judge T.J. Reddick, Jr., the first Black attorney to open an office and practice in Broward County and the county’s first Black judge.

Pryor’s passions include mentoring young people and attorneys. He is an active member of the Broward County Bar Association; a volunteer with the Broward County School District’s “My Future Is Now” program; and a member of the Urban League of Broward County’s Young Professionals Network.

As the county’s chief law enforcement official, Pryor is committed to seeking justice and standing up for what is right. He is committed to making sensible reforms to our criminal justice system. He is dedicated to serving the people of Broward County and making our community safer and better for all who live, work and play here.

Marcia Narine Weldon is the director of the Transactional Skills Program, Faculty Coordinator of the Business Compliance & Sustainability Concentration, and a Lecturer in Law at the University of Miami School of Law. She earned her law degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School, and her undergraduate degree, cum laude, in political science and psychology from Columbia University. After graduating, she worked as a law clerk to former Justice Marie Garibaldi of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, a commercial litigator with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton in New York, and as an employment lawyer with Morgan, Lewis and Bockius in Miami. She spent several years in-house as the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, as well as the Vice President, Global Compliance and Business Standards, and Chief Privacy Officer of Ryder, a publicly traded Fortune 500 company. She oversaw the company's global compliance, business ethics, privacy, government relations, environmental compliance, enterprise risk management, corporate responsibility, and labor and employment legal programs.

In May 2011, she testified before the House Financial Services Committee in Congress on the unintended impact of Dodd-Frank Financial Reform on corporate compliance programs. In 2012, the Secretary of Labor appointed her to the Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee. She also served on the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust from 2014-2017.

Her teaching and research interests include corporate governance, employment law, regulatory compliance, corporate social responsibility, and the intersection of business and human rights. She has taught civil procedure, business associations, professional responsibility, employment law, business and human rights, corporate governance, compliance, and social responsibility, and legal issues for startups, entrepreneurs, and small businesses at other institutions. She speaks frequently on ESG (environmental social and governance factors) and ethical supply chains.

She also serves as the General Counsel of a startup and the CEO of Illuminating Wisdom, where she coaches legal and compliance professionals, works with entrepreneurs and nonprofits on business strategy, and develops and conducts training on legal, compliance, and professional development for corporate clients.

She has been admitted to the bars of New York, New Jersey, Florida, and the United States Supreme Court, and has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Verge, the Guardian, NPR Marketplace, Compliance Week and other news outlets around the world. She blogs regularly for the Business Law Professor Blog.

Leigh-Ann is a writer, strategic advisor, and sought-after speaker on REDI  (racial equity, diversity and inclusion) strategies for organizations and innovation ecosystems. NY Times, Inc. Magazine, NPR, NBC, South Florida Times, Miami Herald, Al Jezeera, American Psychological Association, and the ABA Law Journal have featured her thoughts and contributions.  Leigh-Ann co-hosts the Innovation City podcast and produces storytelling projects, including the 2021 documentary Hustle To Scale, which she also directed.

Leigh-Ann focuses her energy on projects that bridge systemic access and opportunity gaps, with a concentration on tech, entrepreneurship and high impact leaders.  As an advisor, she has supported innovation and technology leaders at Fortune 500 companies including Google, Facebook, Delta, P&G Ventures,  AirBnB, HSBC and UBS.  As a founder, she has launched ventures from concept to scale, raising over $4.5 million in equity free capital to scale numerous ventures.

Leigh-Ann currently serves as President of aīre ventures, a social impact venture studio where she has led its core initiatives to exponential growth to serve over 55,000 innovators and establish 1000+ national and global partnerships over a 5 year period. 

Leigh-Ann is also the founder of the Nyah Project, which provides transformative leadership fellowships abroad and tech enabled college access coaching for diverse youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. Under her leadership, 100 % of Nyah Fellows attend college and over 90% win scholarships — accumulating over $12 million in scholarships since 2014.

She currently serves as a mayoral appointee to the City of Miami Technology Council, on the board of TechHub South Florida and is an advisory board member of MBS Urban Initiatives CDE in addition to the SXSW and Inventures Canada startup pitch competitions. She is currently serving out American Bar Association Presidential appointments as a member of the Taskforce on Engendering Public Trust in the Justice System and the Standing Committee on Public Education.

Leigh-Ann was the youngest lawyer appointed to the American Bar Association's Diversity Center where she served as the national chair of the Coalition on Racial & Ethnic Justice.  There, she spearheaded several national initiatives that resulted in 10,000 individuals impacted, 17 publications and 3 groundbreaking reports over a four year period. 

Previously, she was select for inclusion in the Aspen Institute’s Working Group on Inclusive Innovation in American Cities and the Harvard Business School Young American Leaders Program.

Leigh-Ann has been recognized as one of the Most Influential Black Business Leaders in South Florida, a McClatchy Florida Influencer, one of Miami’s 50 Most Powerful and Influential Black Business Leaders, a Black Enterprise Magazine Tech Trailblazer and the American Bar Association Top 40 Young Lawyers.

Olympia Duhart studies teaching, learning, and vulnerable populations. As a full-time faculty member at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) Shepard Broad College of Law, Professor Duhart teaches Legal Research and Writing, Constitutional Law, and First Amendment Law. She is a tenured Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Faculty Development, and former Director of the nationally ranked Legal Research & Writing Program at NSU. Professor Duhart also taught a short-course on American Constitutional Law for the Universitat de Barcelona in Summer 2020. She was also a 2021 Visiting Professor in the Lawyering Skills Program at UC Irvine School of Law.

From 2014 to 2016, Professor Duhart served as Co-President of the Society of American Law Teachers, a national organization of progressive law teachers. Before joining NSU, Professor Duhart worked at Ruden McClosky and volunteered with the Florida Innocence Project.  She also taught English and Creative Writing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.  In addition, Professor Duhart has worked as a staff reporter for The Miami Herald. She is a co-author (with Camille Lamar Campbell) of Persuasive Legal Writing: A Storytelling Approach. She is also a producer for the “SALT Teaching Social Justice Podcast.” Professor Duhart’ s work has appeared in the Wake Forest Law Review, the Gonzaga Journal of International Law, the Journal of Legal Education, the Berkeley Journal of African-American Law & Policy, Harvard Business Review and The New York Times. She has received numerous awards for her teaching and service. Duhart was born and raised in Miami.