Today, EDLAW Office, located at the fourth floor of the Silliman Portal West building, celebrates 25 years of providing quality legal service to the Dumaguete community.
As full-service Law Firm, EDLAW’s flagship distinctive is its promotion and practice of Preventive Law.
As a new decade unfolded in the 1990s, two members of the legal profession who had recently returned home to Dumaguete, shared a vision to introduce a practice which they called Preventive Law. At that time, lawyers were largely engaged in Reactive Law practice.
Reactive Law is the traditional inclination of clients to consult their lawyer when they are already confronted with legal problems. In most instances, these client consultations resulted in expensive and protracted litigations.
In many instances, these long and extended litigations brought disappointing results, even for the prevailing parties.
The concept of Preventive Law offered a fresh new approach to providing legal protection or, when necessary, relief, for persons who must inevitably deal with the overreaching and unavoidable effects and consequences of being subjects of the Law.
In this concept, clients are trained in anticipating or determining potential legal issues which they might confront concerning a business transaction being considered or a potential legal problem involving a relationship.
When the client develops the habits of exercising Preventive Law in his business or relations, he will consult his lawyer for advice on the options, potential opportunities or complications, and take this advice into consideration when he commits himself to a position vis-í -vis the business transaction or relational situation. This is a practical application of the old proverb, “Look before you leap!”
By analogy, Preventive Law practice is like that of a person who sees his dentist to ensure that his teeth will stay strong and healthy, instead of waiting to visit the dentist to have his decayed tooth pulled.
By empowering clients to exercise Preventive Law, they can potentially save on expenses from costly business mistakes and, most of all, expensive legal expenses.
Today, after 25 years, EDLAW’s practice of Preventive Law has served and benefited several persons, their executives and managers, as well as individuals, who have “educated” themselves in the law, and collectively developed the skills not only to protect themselves from potential legal risks, but to improve their business styles or interpersonal relations as well.
Schools, hospitals, businesses, associations, churches and ministries, and government agencies in our community can testify to the legacy of EDLAW’s Preventive Law practice.
EDLAW has also introduced initiatives for the benefit and improvement of the local chapter of the Integrated Bar, contributing, among others the talents and skills of its members, several of whom have occupied high positions of leadership in the IBP.
On Jan. 15, 1993, lawyers, Ebenezer “Benny” Y. Lim and Jose Riodil “Dil” D. Montebon, registered the professional partnership EDLAW Office to launch and serve as the vehicle for the realization of their vision of establishing an institutional Law Firm dedicated to the advocacy and practice of Preventive Law.
EDLaw is an acronym for Exponents for the Development of Law.
For the last 10 years, EDLAW has been ably guided and led by its Managing Partner, Samsodin T. Tahir. Its current legal staff includes, partner Pristine Ramona M. Raymond, associates Jethro Jed Cadiz and Karen H. Moleta, correspondent-associate Ramon Antonio D. Ruperto (of Ruperto, Teves and Ruperto), and legal assistant Micah Stefan Dagaerag.
This legal complement enables EDLAW to provide competent legal services covering the full range of law practice.
Aside from being the champion of Preventive Law practice, EDLAW has also distinguished itself as a pioneer in utilizing technology to further and rationalize its internal systems to provide competent legal services to its clients.
Consequently, EDLAW has attracted the best and brightest of the lawyers produced by Dumaguete’s law schools who have come for mentoring and the honing of their skills in various aspect of the practice.
To date, the list of alumni of EDLAW lawyers is a veritable who’s who in our legal community. Many are in the judiciary, several are in the Department of Justice, and still some have distinguished themselves in public service, as international experts and scholars in specialized fields of law, and of course, in private practice.
The success of these alumni, and even of the current legal staff, is due in part to the founding partners’ commitment to unselfishly teach and transfer technology, as articulated in their Founding Partner’s motto, a reflection of their personal Christian faith and testimony, “I must decrease, so that they will increase.”