LDS is a Caribbean based professional legislative drafting company. It was established in 2005 in response to the need for private sector legislative drafting expertise to, on the one hand, support the work of national drafting offices, and on the other, assist with public sector strategic initiatives requiring legal and regulatory advice.

Our distinctive characteristic lies in combining our intimate understanding of the laws, legal systems, legislative drafting norms, cultural context and challenges of the small island States of the Caribbean, with our knowledge of international trends both in legislative drafting and in legal and regulatory reform. We therefore provide solutions that are inspired by international experience, but adapted to fit the national legal, institutional and socio-economic context of small island states.

In house we have more than 14 years experience working successfully with Caribbean public officials and regional institutions. We have also worked effectively with regional and international professionals from other disciplines other legislative drafters, regulatory specialists, economists, financial consultants, management consultants and other experts with whom we continue to collaborate where the particular task requires a team of drafters or can benefit from a multi-disciplinary approach.

About Barbara Vargas:

Ms. Barbara Vargas is an attorney at law and a professional legislative drafter who has over 14 years of experience giving legal and regulatory advice, including designing legal and regulatory frameworks. She has worked primarily as a private legal consultant, contracted to advise the OECS and CARICOM Secretariats and individual Governments—including Saint Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts-Nevis, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Barbados, Montserrat & Anguilla—contracted either by the country itself, or by international agencies such as the World Bank, the European Union, the Organisation of American States, the Caribbean Development Bank.  She has also worked as part of these institutions and Governments, in particular, as a member of the Legal Unit of the OECS Secretariat, and a public sector employee of the Governments of Saint Lucia and the British Overseas Territory of Montserrat.

She has worked in different areas of law, including sustainable energy, power, water, transportation, treaty drafting and implementation, constitutional reform, regulation of pharmacists, health informational privacy, criminal practice and procedure, family law and procedure, property, the French civil law, money laundering and counter terrorist financing. She has written papers on family and the legal system of Saint Lucia. Ms. Vargas is proficient in English, French and Spanish.

Ms. Vargas has excelled both in her academic and professional career. She was a recipient of a UWI Scholarship for law, awarded on the basis of her performance in the regional examinations at which she presented Mathematics and Economics. At the University of Ottawa, Canada, she was awarded the prize for the best masters programme. Legislation prepared by her, in particular the OECS model Pesticides and Toxic Chemicals Bill which implements the United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention, has been translated into several languages and promoted by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as a model for other countries to follow.