Members of the Law Society's Diploma Centre team accompanied five trainee solicitors to Paris in May to attend a pilot workshop for the EU-funded LITEL project.

The aim of the project is to promote EU law, strengthen links between legal educators across the EU, and design EU-law modules for trainee lawyers that can be used widely across member states.

LITEL has four partners: the Law Society; the Bar Association in Paris; the Czech Bar Association; and the Catalan Bar Association.

Pilot workshop

During the two-day visit, the Law Society trainees, alongside 15 trainees from the project partner institutions, participated in a pilot workshop on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The trainees worked closely together on the case studies set down in the workshop, which were drafted by an expert committee on the charter from the four training institutions.

The workshop’s objective was to test the material to identify where improvements could be made, before submission to the European Commission, for dissemination to other member states for use in the initial training of lawyers and translation to other languages.

Feedback ‘invaluable’

The feedback and critical evaluation received from all of the trainees was described as “an invaluable contribution” to the work of the project.

The Law Society of Ireland delegation included:

• Geraldine Rafferty BL, who is coordinating the Law Society’s involvement,
• Dr Thamil Venthan Ananthavinayagan (Assistant Principal at the Department of Justice), and
• Cristina Stamatescu (solicitor and member of the Law Society Human Rights and Equality Committee).

Trainees in attendance were:

• Orla Lydon (Legal Aid Board),
• Shane Farrelly (Rostra Solicitors),
• Lauren Lehane (Carl O’Mahony Solicitors Cork),
• Adrian Gillick (Baxter Mimnagh Solicitors), and
• Lynda Crosbie (Whitney Moore Solicitors).

The next gathering for the project takes place in Barcelona (30 September and 1 October). The Law Society says that it looks forward to continuing to work on the project and fostering collaboration between young lawyers.