AW Chambers · Est. 1987
A Legal Lineage
Traced to 1826
Historical records of the Galle Bar trace the Weerasooriya family's association with the legal profession to 1826. Across recorded practitioners, members of the family served as Notaries Public, Proctors, Crown Proctors, and Attorneys-at-Law in southern Sri Lanka. AW Chambers continues this legal tradition through its present practice in Colombo.
1826
First Recorded Legal Appointment
8
Recorded Legal Practitioners
1987
AW Chambers Established
Galle Fort, Southern Province · seat of the family practice
01 / 08
“So the oldest family of lawyers at the Galle bar are still practising.”
Norah Roberts, Galle as Quiet as Asleep (1993), p. 247
In Galle as Quiet as Asleep (1993), Norah Roberts, Librarian of the Galle Public Library, closed her account of the families of the Galle Bar with this one: “So the oldest family of lawyers at the Galle bar are still practising.” She traces every practitioner named below to a common ancestor, Margiris Weerasooriya, headman of Dodanduwa, and records the family's own claim, made to her by the Crown Proctor, that it “has given more members to the Galle bar than any other family in the south.”
The family's recorded association with the legal profession begins in 1826, when Don Harmanis Weerasooriya became a Notary Public in Galle during the British colonial period. Across the recorded practitioners that followed, members of the family served as Proctors, Crown Proctors, Attorneys-at-Law, and office-bearers of the Bar in southern Sri Lanka.
Today that line continues through AW Chambers, founded in Colombo in 1987 by Asoka Weerasooriya. The firm does not claim to be the oldest in Sri Lanka, and this page keeps the two records apart: the family's at the Galle Bar since 1826, and the firm's since 1987.
Recorded Legal Practitioners
Galle, Southern Province · 1826 to present
I · 1826
Don Harmanis Weerasooriya
Notary Public
“The first person in the family with any legal connection was Don Harmanis Weerasooriya who became a notary public in 1826.” Roberts's account of the family opens with him, and so does the record.
II · 1868
Alexander Theodore Weerasooriya
First Proctor · Enrolled 1868 · Member, Galle Municipal Council
Don's nephew, and in Roberts's words “the first proctor in the family”, enrolled in 1868, forty-two years after his uncle became a notary. Also served as a member of the Galle Municipal Council.
III · 1876
Theodoris Weerasooriya
Proctor · Enrolled 1876
Don's son, who enrolled as a proctor in 1876, eight years after his cousin Alexander. With him the family had a second generation at the Galle Bar.
IV · 1890
Robert Richard Weerasooriya
Proctor
Hubert's grandfather, enrolled as a proctor in 1890. Roberts records that in his time “there were only a handful of lawyers practising at Galle, all of whom used to resort to the N.O.H. for their lunch” — the New Oriental Hotel in the Fort — and it is from that table that she takes the story of the stranded French traveller who married Proctor Bawa and so began the family of Geoffrey Bawa.
V · 1896
William Weerasooriya
Proctor · Enrolled 1896
“The next proctor in the family, enrolled in 1896.” The fourth of the family at the Galle Bar in the nineteenth century.
VI · 1903
Sam S. Weerasooriya
Proctor · 1875 to 1961, enrolled 1903
“Veteran proctor”, in Roberts's phrase. Enrolled in 1903 and died in 1961 aged eighty-seven, his practice spanned the last half-century of British rule and the first decade of independence.
Sam S. Weerasooriya, Proctor, c. early 1900s Sam S. Weerasooriya at his desk VII · 1953
H. W. R. Weerasooriya
Puisne Judge · 1953 to 1964
The family's judge. Norah Roberts records H. W. R. Weerasooriya, retired Puisne Judge, who served from 1953 to 1964, as a member of the family, and the son of H. P. Weerasooriya, proctor and Municipal Councillor of Galle. “His outstanding characteristics were his honesty, sincerity and simplicity.”
VIII · Enrolled 18 Nov 1949 · Crown Proctor 1969
Hubert E. Weerasooriya
Crown Proctor · President, Law Association of Galle · Vice President, Bar Association of Sri Lanka (1981)
Proctor in 1949, Crown Proctor in 1969, President of the Law Association of Galle and Vice President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka in 1981. Roberts found him in chambers “on the esplanade outside the courts, always occupied”, forty-one years at the Galle Bar and “still going strong”, often taking temple land cases, a man of “an inbred courtesy rare in these days”. He wrote novels “projecting a moral”: The Trousered Harijan, as a young man under Gandhi's influence, and The Tamil Lady and the Sinhalese Lawyer, “advocating a non-violent solution to the ethnic problem”. He also published a historical guide to the ruins of Anuradhapura. His daughter Manel followed him to the Bar.
Hubert E. Weerasooriya in court robes, c. mid-twentieth century Hubert E. Weerasooriya, Proctor S.C. & Notary Public, formal portrait IX · 1982
Manel Weerasooriya
Attorney-at-Law
Took her oaths in 1982 and practised at Galle with her father. Roberts: “Rather indignantly the young lady informed me that she did appear in court in cases and defends her clients in person.” She died in 2012.
Manel Weerasooriya, Attorney-at-Law X · 1987
Asoka Weerasooriya
Founder & Senior Counsel
Took oaths in 1987. Former State Counsel and later appointed Senior Counsel. Has appeared across the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Courts, and trial courts of Sri Lanka over several decades of practice.
XI · 2023
Akarsha Weerasooriya
Attorney-at-Law
Took oaths in 2023. The most recent member of the family to join the Sri Lankan Bar, carrying forward a connection that now spans nearly two centuries.
From the Archive
Photographs of the line
As Documented
The Weerasooriya family's legal history is recorded in Galle as Quiet as Asleep (1993) by Norah Roberts, Librarian of the Galle Public Library, a published account of Galle's history, its people, and its institutions. The book records that H. E. Weerasooriya, then Crown Proctor, stated that the Weerasooriya family had given more members to the Sri Lankan Bar than any other family in the south.
Galle as Quiet as Asleep
- Author
- Norah Roberts
- Year
- 1993
- ISBN
- 9558095850
- Origin
- Published in Sri Lanka
- Source
- Galle Public Library
AW Chambers does not claim institutional continuity with earlier family practitioners. The heritage documented here reflects the family's legal lineage, distinct from the founding of AW Chambers in 1987.
Still Practising.
Two centuries on, the line continues. Asoka Weerasooriya took oaths in 1987 and founded AW Chambers in Colombo that same year. His son Akarsha was admitted in 2023. The work goes on.