Brion keynote speaker at PLM College of Law's 20th anniversary celebration

MANILA, Philippines - Supreme Court Associate Justice Arturo Brion will be the guest speaker at a legal education forum to be hosted by the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) College of Law.

The forum, the first of the Annual Dean’s Seminar Lecture Series subtitled “Conversations with leaders who elevate the profession” will be held tomorrow, Feb. 27. It will kick off a year-long celebration of the PLM College of Law’s 20th anniversary.

The seminar lecture series is in the tradition of the discourse sponsored by universities offering a community forum in which prominent speakers are invited to foster and encourage intellectual discussion. The lectures are designed to enhance understanding of existing concepts, to challenge prevailing modes of thought and to promote academic dynamism.

Expected to attend are members of the judiciary, the law academe and law students. The university administration led by president Adel Tamano will be on hand to welcome all the guests.

Lawyer Ernesto Maceda Jr., dean of the PLM College of Law, said the event will be special since it will be the first time that the college will host a sitting Supreme Court justice.

According to Maceda, the university’s law students will have the opportunity to update themselves on issues concerning legal education from a member of the High Court, who had also been a part of the government’s legislative and executive branches in the past.

Prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court last year, Brion served in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s cabinet as labor secretary. He is a former member of Congress, 1984-1986.

He had been in the academe, teaching law at the Ateneo de Manila University from 1976 to 1981, and in 1986. He was a former Bar Examiner in Political Law. A renowned member of the Philippine bar, Brion topped the bar exams in 1974 with a general average of 91.65 percent. He earned his Bachelor of Laws from the Ateneo Law School, where he graduated cum laude and class valedictorian and his LL.M. from Osgoode Hall, York University. In 2008, Justice Brion was recognized by the City of Manila as Outstanding Manilan in the field of law.

The PLM College of Law was established in April 1989. In its 20 years of operation, it has come to be known as one of the top ten law schools in the Philippines.