Found at: http://www.anguillaguide.com/article/articleprint/4737/-1/140/
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New Landmark: Joyce Kentish Opens Law Building
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Anguillian Barrister-at-Law Joyce Kentish-Egan & Associates, officially opened Auckland House on May 12, the firm’s new Law Building and an attractive landmark in The Quarter.
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Official Opening of Auckland House
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he opening ceremony in the large courtyard, attended by many invited guests, was chaired by the firm’s Associate Lawyer, Navine Fleming-Kisob. The three-storey building was dedicated by Bishop Errol Brooks and Assistant Priest, Reverend Menes Hodge.
Anguilla Bar Association representative, Paulette Harrigan, who in the early years of her career worked in the Antigua Chambers of Lake & Kentish, paid glowing tribute to Joyce Kentish. “It became apparent at the time that although Joyce loved Antigua, her heart and soul were embedded in the country of her birth, Anguilla, and it was her desire to both live and work in Anguilla on a full-time basis,” she recalled. Ms. Harrigan congratulated Joyce for not only realising her dream, eventually, but exceeding it by opening her own practice in Anguilla. She described Auckland House as a welcome landmark to the landscape of Anguilla and said it was dedicated to a great lady, the matriarch of the Kentish family, Mrs. Auckland Kentish.
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Chief Minister Fleming (second from left) and other invited guests
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John Benjamin, of Caribbean Juris Chambers, a friend and colleague, who had moved her call to the Anguilla Bar, spoke of Joyce’s high integrity, resilience, forcefulness and yet gentleness in her practice of law. “I wish to thank you for all the work we have done in the past together and I am sure that with this majestic building we can do more, and I am sure that you and your staff and all who benefit from your service will do well,” he added.
Joyce’s sister, Madam Justice Elneth Kentish, QC, visiting from Barbados, introduced the guest speaker, Justice Dennis Morrison, QC, a part-time Appeal Court Judge in Belize and a former tutor of Joyce at the Norman Manley Law School.
“Auckand House represents a fulfilment of Joyce’s dream that after many years of work and success in, for her, the relative wilderness of Antigua, she would return to the garden that is Anguilla, which she never really left, to establish a permanent basis for her highly successful law practice,” he stated. “And so today she enters into a future that by her own efforts she has laboured to create.”
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Mrs. Joyce Kentish-Egan (centre) with staff members
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He went on: “The achievement is as much hers as it is that of the people around her, the members of her firm… her family, colleagues and friends and the communities of the region that have nurtured and supported her. This event coincides with the 40th Anniversary of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. Joyce has been a member of the OECS Bar for nearly 22 of those 40 years. The success of the Court owes much to the learning, dedication and the tremendous capacity for change and growth that members of the profession have demonstrated over these years.”
Justice Morrison said the magnificent building represented a re-investment by Joyce Kentish, her Associates and family in the profession and in the country that made them and her strong and independent. “It is a way of giving back and re-investing in the country itself,” he concluded.
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Mrs. Auckland Kentish unveiling plaque
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His feature address, which also looked at the functioning of the Court and Justice system, was followed by the unveiling of the plaque bearing the name Auckland House by Mrs. Auckland Kentish and a presentation to Lorna Rogers, Joyce’s sister who, in 1983, took over the office of Lake & Kentish in Anguilla.
Navine Fleming-Kisob gave a short biography of Joyce who taught at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School before obtaining a degree in English and French from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. She then returned to teaching. In 1980 she went back to the university to study law. She graduated from the Norman Manley Law School in 1985 and was called to the Bar in Anguilla later that year and the Antigua Bar in 1986. She grew in the law under the watchful eye of her aunt Dame Bernice Lake QC in the Chambers of Lake & Kentish practising primarily in Antigua and Anguilla. She served there until January 31, 2006 thereupon she embarked on a totally new venture, Joyce Kentish & Associates.
Mrs Fleming-Kisob spoke highly of Joyce and invited her to the podium for a bouquet of flowers as a token of the “love and appreciation” of the staff.
Replying, Joyce said it was a special day for her. “When I speak of me, I include ‘a we’ because Joyce Kentish stands here as the plurality of the Kentish family, the influences of the Lake family, great friends and abiding friendships,” she acknowledged. “The success that I experience and have experienced is because so many people have very positive influences on my life and I thank generally all those people.”
She was grateful to her mother and other close family members and especially to three persons all of whom were absent. One of them was her aunt, Dame Bernice Lake, QC. “If I am successful in the life of the law, it is on account of her influence; her indomitable will; her fierce and passionate love for the law; her refusal to take any excuse for anything that was mediocre; her insistence that there was only one standard to be met and that was the standard of excellence – and dare you not live up to that because you felt her wrath and when you felt that wrath you either resolve to be a better person or a diminished person. Well, I decided to be a better person,” she stated. The other two persons she spoke about were her late grandmother Ellen who taught her the pride of ambition and her late aunt Teacher Albena Lake-Hodge, who was the bed-rock in her life and that of her siblings.
The Vote of Thanks was delivered by Ms Ricki Camacho, an Associate in the Chambers.