Modernising European Legal Education (MELE)

The European Union supports the project "Modernising European Legal Education" (MELE) of the Europa-Institut with 450.000€ over a period of 3 years

Together with eight other European partners, the Universities of Belgrade (Serbia), Zagreb (Croatia), Skopje (Northern Macedonia), Cadiz (Spain), Vilnius (Lithuania), Groningen (Netherlands), Regent's University London (United Kingdom) and the South Eastern European Law School Network, the project "Modernising European Legal Education" from Prof. Dr. Thomas Giegerich, Director of the Europa-Institut will be awarded the grant by the European Union. "We are very pleased that the selection committee found our project application and the idea behind it to be innovative and eligible for funding. Together with our partners, we look forward to the exciting and important work in the next three years", says Prof. Dr. Thomas Giegerich, head of the project.

The aim of the project is to prepare young law students for the European job market and to equip them with the necessary interdisciplinary and fundamental tools for a digital and diverse future.

The consortium partners of MELE intend to enhance the transversal competences and academic skills of students by improving the teaching skills of academic staff among all consortium partners. Moreover, the project’s objective is also to raise awareness of cross-cutting topics, like gender issues, Green deal and climate change, digitalisation and multilevel governance, for legal studies. 

Effective education and professional training systems are the cornerstones of equitable, open and democratic societies and of sustainable growth and employment. In this context, it is increasingly questioned whether education and teaching methods, especially in the field of legal studies, are still up to date to meet the profession’s needs. Currently, students are trained in very traditional methods, exclusively focusing on legal knowledge and not beyond it. This despite the fact that evidence demonstrates that an increasing number of graduates will most likely not work in traditional legal professions. Hence, additional competences and skills are required to ensure high employability of law graduates. Such needs have been triggered by the globalisation of the legal profession and the increased need for understanding of cross-cutting subjects, e.g multilevel governance, Green Deal and climate change, as well as global digitalisation of societies and automatisation of legal procedures. Furthermore, the working environment of nationally trained ‘traditional’ lawyers will be undergoing considerable changes in future, varies from increased numbers of claims and computerised procedures to complex international cases, which include multiple jurisdictions. These changes in the traditional legal labour market require revisiting of legal education approaches and teaching methods to ensure that graduates are prepared for such emerging challenges. The delivery of legal education requires a holistic engagement with requirements and needs of today’s global job market.