The University of Human Development Law Department hosted a seminar for the Head of the Court of Appeals in Sulaymaniyah, Judge Jasm Jaza Jafir, at Professor Dr Ali Qaradaghi Hall on Saturday, 2nd December 2023. The seminar's focus was students’ future careers and how best they can prepare for the challenges. 

The Dean of the College of Law and Politics, Asst Prof. Dr Kanaan Hamagharib Abdullah, welcomed Judge Jafir on the stage and presented him to the audience who were all students of the Law Department. The judge spoke from his experience to advise students on what they should do now and what to expect after graduation.

He explained the different legal professions that holders of law degrees can have and focused on the most common occupation which is being a lawyer. His advice was that as a student: they should listen well to their teachers and take the study courses very seriously. There is no time to waste, he said, on social media or using screens for entertainment. Instead, students can try learning the Arabic language because no lawyer is a good lawyer without Arabic – most legal recourses in Iraq are available in Arabic, and all the court cases are written and processed in Arabic except in the three governorates of the Kurdistan Region.

And as a lawyer, professionalism, honesty, impartiality, diligence and integrity are some important work ethics that lawyers must observe, Judge Jafir added. He said that lawyers must follow evidence and act based on facts, not temptation or self-interest. He also said that as lawyers they should not feel in a rush to get promoted; they need to take things slowly, one step at a time, and learn from every failure. He advised them to read the legal books and at the same time not to feel shy to ask experts and honourable judges questions regarding legal matters.

The seminar ended with questions from the students. It lasted about an hour and a half.