Koko bar lecture series produces 63 new lawyers

The 2013 Senator Koko Pimentel Free Last Minute Bar Lecture Series, the only free last minute lecture series of its kind in a run-up to the grueling bar examinations each year, produced 63 new lawyers from the latest bar results.

Organized and wholly sponsored by the Office of Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III when he assumed office in 2011 as one of his first projects, the free lecture series has produced more than 100 lawyers by far.

"We envisioned our free lecture series as our humble way of supporting the bar examination preparations of our bar candidates. We invited former bar examiners, bar topnotchers and prominent bar lecturers to be our lecturers because we believed that it is one way of giving our bar candidates a boost in their confidence going to the examinations," Pimentel said.

The last-minute bar lecture series, held in partnership with the College of Law of the University of the East under Dean Amado D. Valdez, were held every Saturday of October 2013 during which the participants also received free hand outs and free practice sets for multiple choice questions.

During the 2012 edition of the free lecture series, one of the participants, lawyer Ralph Carlo Barcelona of the Aquinas University in Legaspi City, placed No. 7 among the successful examinees.

"We hope to continue these free lectures for the 2014 bar examinations on a bigger and wider scale to help more of our bar candidates realize their dreams of becoming lawyers. We want them to know nasama kami sa pangarap nila," added Pimentel.

Among the distinguished panel of lecturers of the 2013 series were 1979 bar second placer Prof. Rene Gorospe for political law; 2008 labor law examiner and University of Manila College of Law Dean Salvador Poquiz for labor law; renowned author, law dean and civil law expert, Dean Ed Vincent Albano for civil law; Law professor and pre-bar lecturer Rizalina V. Lumbera for taxation law; 1988 bar eight placer Timoteo Aquino for commercial law; 2009 criminal law examiner and Court of Appeals Justice Mario Lopez for criminal law; pre-bar and MCLE lecturer Prof. Manny Riguera on remedial law; and AGCC Edwin Castillo, 2011 examiner in legal and judicial ethics, who handled legal ethics.