USAID supports continuing legal education program

TIRANA, July 3 – The legal education in Albania on Tuesday celebrated the successful completion of year one of the first Continuing Legal Education program (CLE) for Lawyers and Assistant Lawyers with a ceremony organized at the National Chamber of Advocates (NCA) which recognized the lawyers and assistant lawyers that were able to take full advantage of the CLE program.
Last year USAID and NCA signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the establishment of this program as an important step in training legal professionals and bringing Albania in line with the practice in virtually all other European countries in the field of legal education.
The first year of the CLE program piloted in the regional chambers of advocates in Vlora and Durr쳠has included over 160 training sessions for a total of 12 credits. Classes by well-know Albanian professors have covered 12 legal subjects including civil, criminal and commercial law, ethics, legal writing and reasoning. Over 320 lawyers and assistant lawyers have attended these classes, a number which constitutes over 70 percent of all the lawyers and assistants registered in the Vlora and Durr쳠chambers.
The CLE program relies on cost sharing between the NCA and USAID’s Albanian Justice Sector Strengthening Project (JuST), and it is implemented in cooperation with the Albanian Center for Legal Training and Studies (ACLTS). It addresses the need to help maintain the highest standards of professionalism of lawyers by updating knowledge and improving skills. The goal is to make it a mandatory, nationwide program, and amendments to this effect are already proposed for inclusion in the law for the profession of advocates. Through the JuST project, USAID is committed to continue its support for the Continuing Legal Education program for Albanian lawyers as an important pillar of justice sector reform in Albania.
Justice has been post-communist Albania’s Achilles’ heel. All international reports have always mentioned it as a weak point in the country’s democracy, often due to corruption but also because of low professional level.