The main objective of the project is to raise awareness of cross-cutting areas of EU law and to be able to contribute to the effective and coherent application of EU law among young lawyers in private practice across Europe.
In this project a series of intensive courses of tendays’ duration will be organised in English in Trier (Germany), providing initial training to 30 young lawyers per group on EU law. It will provide a platform for exchange of best practices, information and knowledge creating close contacts among young lawyers from different EU Member States.
Each course consists of thirteen sessions which will be practice-oriented and offer a mixture of training methods, varying from lectures to group exercises presented by EU and national legal experts, including experienced lawyers in private practice.
Visits to the Court of Justice of the EU in Luxembourg and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg will be included.
Expected results
The project will reduce the gaps in training of young lawyers identified by the European Commission‘s European judicial training strategy for 2021-2024 by giving young lawyers “a grounding in the EU legal system and legal culture in the course of their initial training”.
The planned courses will help them build their practical understanding of the role of EU law in national legal systems, the rule of law acquis and their role as European justice practitioners.
The project will concretely benefit the target group by:
- Increasing their knowledge of EU law.
- Raising mutual trust by creating networking opportunities and cross-border cooperation among 120 lawyers from selected Bar associations participating in the project with a view to strengthening future cooperation and the exchange of information.
- Creating new training material, which can be used for further training of lawyers in all EU Member States.
- Ensuring a widespread future use of the training package.
- Disseminating the training output widely and increase self-learning opportunities and tools to indirect beneficiaries in all EU Members States and beyond.
Methodology
Making use of our extensive database of training material already developed during previous projects, the participants will be able to familiarise themselves with the basics of the training topics before each course. The training will be a blend of frontal presentations, case studies (group work exercises) and workshops.
The presentations will cover cross-cutting EU law topics, including EU litigation, fundamental rights (the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights), the rule of law, and data protection, as well as non-legal skills, such as online legal databases research, professional secrecy, the regulation of lawyers and their mobility in Europe, as well as the future of legal professions in Europe.
The presentations will be followed by case studies, workshops where the participants will be asked to work in small groups, and study a case scenario, discuss it among themselves and with an expert.
According to our experience, group exercises allow participants to dive into the details of EU legal framework, stimulate discussion among legal professionals from different EU Member States and apply EU law in practice with the aim of developing key skills of a future lawyer, such as ability to analyse and summarise a case, adequate preparation for a hearing, listening skills, apply and argument the correct legal basis, communicate clearly, and be aware of national and European legal environments.
A further practical aspect of the course is the attendance of a hearing at the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in Luxembourg and a visit to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as well as the European Parliament.Through these visits the participants will gain experience with the work of three major international institutions in Europe, in particular the specificities related to the conducting of a hearing, the lodging of applications before these jurisdictions, and the law-making process.
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