LEGAL EDUCATION IN EUROPE: A CASE OF DENIED HARMONISATION BETWEEN CIVIL LAW AND COMMON LAW TRADITIONS?

Abstract

Legal education across Europe is constantly under fire, and pleading to reform legal studies has been persistent across the centuries. Despite the multifaced picture which seems at first glance to characterise the different national educational models (1), this paper argues that through an historical comparative analysis, it is possible to infer some common trends in the evolution of legal educational systems. Although the starting points of the different traditions are very distant, it has been possible since the end of the 20^th century to glimpse a harmonisation in the field of legal education across Europe; common aims are ensuring both academic studies and professional training and combining theoretical knowledge with practical aspects (2). This trend is affected by some fundamental initiatives at the European level, including the Bologna Process as well as the call for better regulation in the professional sector sought by the EU Commission (3). Nevertheless, the current sense of dissatisfaction with the way in which legal education is structured and delivered and the new pressure for change coming from the market and the professional world are about to reshape these moorings once again. This paper argues that the actual opposite responses from the common law and the civil law traditions may take legal education back to its earliest origins, reviving once again the rift between civil law and common law systems (4).