Qualification: initiative will ease cross-border movement

A project to identify the skills, knowledge and competencies lawyers across Europe should have on qualification was announced last week.


The initiative by the Council of Bars and Law Societies of the European Union's (CCBE) training committee - headed by Birmingham University law lecturer Dr Julian Lonbay - aims to aid mutual recognition of training and qualifications across the EU. This, in turn, should ease the cross-border movement and practice of lawyers.


It mirrors the work done by the Law Society's training framework review, which focused on knowledge at the point of qualification.


A paper by Dr Lonbay to the CCBE's biannual plenary meeting, held in Porto, said: 'With cross-border practice a reality, and with [the CCBE's] common code of conduct for such practice being updated, and with "integrated" lawyers [under the Lawyers Establishment Directive] now also a reality, it is timely for the CCBE to begin to consider a common minimum standard for lawyers' training, and to recognise those elements of national training that are already common.'


The project will look at both the academic and professional stages of training. The committee is working with the European Law Faculties Association to devise common minimum university requirements, and will consider the feasibility of a 'common platform' for the professional stage.


Law societies currently have to assess the qualification of other European lawyers and students who want to work or study in their countries.