CCBE PLENARY SESSION: moves afoot to follow ABA in benchmarking legal education


The European Commission last week sent mixed messages to Europe's leading lawyers about the priority it is giving to multi-disciplinary partnerships (MDPs).



Addressing the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe's (CCBE) bi-annual plenary session last week, two commission officials - Anne-Margrete Wachtmeister and Margot Fröhlinger of the competition and internal market directorates respectively - gave the Bruges-based meeting differing accounts of the importance of MDPs.



Speaking in a closed session last Thursday, Ms Wachtmeister is understood to have echoed the message of EU competition commissioner Mario Monti earlier this year, when he told a conference in Brussels that he supports MDPs (see [2003] Gazette, 30 October, 1). Mr Monti is expected to issue a report on competition in the professions next year.



But in another closed session, Ms Fröhlinger - discussing a new draft services directive - reportedly told delegates that MDPs will be imposed only subject to public interest, and offered the CCBE the opportunity to lobby the commission to set out any reasons why they might not be appropriate for lawyers.



Alison Hook, the Law Society's director of international, said: 'We will be following the draft services directive and competition commissioner's report in great detail and we wouldn't want to see anything coming from the services directive that cuts across regulation in England and Wales.'



The regulation of MDPs in England and Wales is under consideration by the Clementi review.



Meanwhile, the CCBE was urged to consider benchmarking legal education in Europe in response to similar moves by the American Bar Association (ABA).



Dr Julian Lonbay, a lecturer at Birmingham University and head of the CCBE's training committee, told delegates that - following meetings with the ABA earlier this year - he understood that its central and east European law initiative (CEELI) is attempting to create a 'benchmarking index' for European legal education.



This could mean that states such as Romania, Bulgaria and Belarus - where CEELI is active - mould any reforms to legal education to US standards, which might not conform with those of other European states.



Hans-Jürgen Hellwig, the CCBE's first vice-president - who became president-elect at the plenary session - said: 'The US system could become the Standard & Poor's of education in these European states. And we have seen how capital markets are dependent on US ratings systems. The dimension of what we have been told is huge.'



He said the CCBE should begin to look at benchmarking education as a matter of urgency.



The plenary session confirmed that French lawyer Bernard Vatier will replace Mr Hellwig as the CCBE's first vice-president next year, and Portuguese lawyer Manuel Cavaleiro Brandão was elected unopposed as the second vice-president.