Lionel Luckhoo

Sir Lionel Alfred Luckhoo KCMG CBE QC (2 March 1914 – 12 December 1997) was a Guyana-born politician, diplomat, and well-known lawyer, famed for his 245 consecutive successful defences in murder cases. He was the brother of Guyana Governor-General Sir Edward Luckhoo.

Luckhoo's grandfather, Moses Luckhoo, was one of many Indians brought to Guyana as indentured labourers in the sugar cane industry in the mid-19th century. In 1899 Sir Lionel's father, Edward Alfred Luckhoo, became the first Indian solicitor of Guyana.

Luckhoo was born in New Amsterdam, British Guiana, and was one of three sons and two daughters born into a prominent family of lawyers. His mother was Evelyn Maude Mungal-Singh, and his sisters were Ena Luckhoo and Renee Luckhoo. His two brothers, Edward Victor Luckhoo and Claude Lloyd Luckhoo, became Queen's Counsels.

He was educated at Queen's College, Georgetown, Guyana. Then he began studying medicine at St. Thomas' Hospital in England but quickly felt squeamish about surgical procedures. He shifted over to legal studies and was called to the English bar in the Middle Temple in 1940. At the same time that Allied troops were evacuating from Dunkirk in World War II, Luckhoo left England for his homeland. He entered into a solicitor's practice with one of his brothers in the firm Luckhoo and Luckhoo.

He maintained his private legal practice spanning most of the years from 1940 to 1985, and became a Queen's Counsel in 1954. His reputation earned him an entry in the Guinness Book of Records (1990) where he is dubbed the world's "most successful lawyer". The record is for obtaining as a defence trial lawyer 245 successive murder acquittals. In a few instances his clients were found guilty in jury trials, but were acquitted in appeal cases. He also practised as a barrister in England and later served as a judge of the Supreme Court of Guyana.

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