Colonia, Yap-- Gov. Henry Falan of Yap has announced the appointment of Tevita Toloi Muloilagi of Fiji to the position of assistant attorney general reporting to acting Attorney General Moses Limur.
Muloilagi received his law degree from the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu in 2005, passing his bar examination in 2006. His career began by serving as a criminal prosecutor in Fiji’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecution.
In 2010, he opened his own firm, Muloilagi & Associates, providing a range of litigation services from civil to criminal work. When a scholarship to study at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus was offered to him, he took a year off in 2013 – 2014 to study for a Masters of Science in International Development Management, “an area dealing with International Law with Diplomacy/International Relations and Development,” he explained.
Returning to Fiji, Muloilagi joined the country’s Civil Aviation Authority as the legal & enforcement manager and during that time, he was invited by the Dean of the University of Fiji, School of Law to create a course in Civil Aviation Law. He then joined the University of the South Pacific's School of Law as a Tutor and later joined the University of Fiji's School of Law as a Lecturer where he then taught the Civil Aviation Law course with other law courses.
Although Muloilagi has only been on the job in Yap since March 9, he expressed his “readiness to support the attorneys” prosecuting the case of the murder of Yap’s former acting attorney general, Rachelle Bergeron-Hammerling, that made international news in October 2019.
Among the challenges that Muloilagi anticipates is transitioning from his training in the British legal system to the American system, “which can be dealt with in a very short period of time,” he said.
Falan welcomed Muloilagi with gratitude for his willingness to accept the position after a very difficult period for the people of Yap. “I look forward to working closely with Attorney Muloilagi. He offers us an extraordinary background of experience and knowledge that will be put to immediate use.”