The Court Protocol & Information Officer, Dr. Michael Anthony Lilla, is a citizen of Trinidad & Tobago.  He completed his secondary schooling at St. Mary’s College and the Polytechnic Institute in Port of Spain, Trinidad, after which he read French Literature at the Université de Paris, from which he took the Diplôme Universitaire des Etudes Littéraires (1974), the Licence ès Lettres and the Certificat d’Etudes Supérieures (1975).  Dr. Lilla also later attended the University of the West Indies, from which he took the postgraduate Diploma in Education (1983), the postgraduate Diploma in International Relations (1988) and the Ph. D. in International Relations (2002).  Between 1998 and 2005, he received certificates of participation at several seminars hosted by the Institute for Court Management of the US National Centre for State Courts.

Dr. Lilla has worked as a language teacher (Latin, English and French) at Queen’s Royal College in Port of Spain (1976-1988); as a lecturer in Education at the School of Education of the University of the West Indies (1983-1985), and as a part-time lecturer in French for International Relations at the UWI Institute of International Relations (1989-1998).  He was also Research Associate to the Director at this latter establishment from 1990 to 1993.

Dr. Lilla was awarded a postgraduate scholarship by the University of the West Indies in 1990 and a summer fellowship to attend the Université d’Eté at the Martinique campus of the Université des Antilles et de la Guyane in 1997.  In 1998, in recognition of “services rendered to French culture”, the title of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques was conferred upon Dr. Lilla by the Government of France.

In June 1998, Dr. Lilla entered the court system as Court Protocol & Information Officer of the Judiciary of Trinidad & Tobago.  He served in this position until his appointment as Court Protocol & Information Officer of the Caribbean Court of Justice on 1 February 2005.