On 15 June 2016, the European Lawyers Foundation began implementing the TRALIM project, co-financed by the European Union. The aim of the project is to train 130 lawyers from 5 different Member States (Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Poland) on EU Law relating to asylum and immigration from the perspective of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The project, which takes place through 4 seminars, will last 12 months. After the first 6 months, and now that the two first seminars have been held, it is time to undertake a mid-term evaluation.

The first seminar was held in Madrid in October, and the second one in Athens in December 2016. The seminars each had a duration of 1,5 days. The TRALIM seminars offer a good example of how training can deal with important topics while at the same time offering the participants networking opportunities.

By the mid-term of the project’s life, TRALIM has proved to be a success story. The seminars in Madrid and Athens have been well attended (indeed we have surpassed the expected number of lawyers so far by 17, and we expect by the end of project to have trained more than the 130 lawyers we were committed to with the European Commission). The evaluations of the two seminars also show that the participants are satisfied with the speakers, the content, the mix of participants from different countries and the structure.

The success is thanks to the highly qualified lawyers selected by the bars to participate in the seminars, the high quality of the speakers and the excellent relationship between the European Lawyers Foundation and its project partners (the Spanish Bar, the Athens Bar, the Law Society of Ireland, the Italian Bar and the Polish legal advisors).

We look forward to the two remaining seminars in Dublin (February 2016) and Rome (April 2016).

The European Lawyers Foundation (ELF) and the CCBE were awarded last year a project to carry out a study on “EAW-Rights: analysis of the implementation and operation of the European Arrest Warrant from the point of view of defence practitioners”. The project, which ended on 2nd November 2016, aimed to contribute to the correct and consistent implementation of the European Arrest Warrant; in particular, the project focused on the following objectives:

• Identification of the implementation at national level of the Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA on the European Arrest Warrant in all EU Member States.
• Identification of good practices carried out in the 28 Member States in order to ensure defence rights
• Presentation of recommendations focused on the improvement of defence rights in EAW cases

The project’s main result was the development of a study that addresses these objectives. It can be downloaded for free at the following link. Further to this, ELF continues working on the EAW due to the importance of this legal instrument for those detained under it and their lawyers. ELF is now working on a proposal called EAW-Net. The object of this new project is to allow experienced practitioners from different Member States to network around a theme of mutual learning and exchange of best practices. The need for a network between EAW defence practitioners, especially in the context of dual representation in both issuing and executing states, was highlighted by the national experts who contributed to the EAW-Rights study.

The European Lawyers Foundation (ELF) is headquartered in The Hague, The Netherlands. It was established by the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) in 2014.

ELF’s objective is to undertake projects that relate to the exercise of the profession of lawyers, the development of the law and practice pertaining to the rule of law and administration of justice and substantive developments in the law itself, both at a European and international level. ELF works mainly in two areas:

A) European projects: these are projects implemented within the EU, and mostly funded by the European Union. They cover a broad spectrum of issues: from training lawyers in different areas of law to drafting studies on important EU instruments.

B) External projects: these are focused on issues related to the profession (for example, our projects funded by the International Bar Association in Ukraine and Kazakhstan on improving the quality of legal services in these countries) and to issues on the rule of Law (such as our project on re-establishing the rule of law in Venezuela).

The European Lawyers Foundation is delighted that it has recently been awarded the MULTILAW project. It is a long-awaited initiative, funded by the European Union (EU), which allows greater mobility of lawyers within the European Union and contributes to the development of a European judicial culture. It will set up the first European training exchange scheme for lawyers, based on the good practices established by the European Judicial Training Network for the exchange of judges and prosecutors.

The project is led by the European Lawyers Foundation, in partnership with the Paris Bar, the Athens Bar, the National Bars of Romania, Lithuania, Spain and the Czech Republic and the Polish Legal Advisors. During its life, lawyers from 7 EU Member States (young lawyers with up to 5 years of professional experience) will have the opportunity to be trained abroad in host institutions from the legal sector. During their placement, the incoming lawyers will be able to immerse themselves in other EU Member States’ legal systems, to create or consolidate cross-border networking capacities, and to improve their legal and linguistic skills. The duration of each placement will be two weeks, and hosting institutions in partner countries will be either local and national bars or private law firms with cross-border activities within Europe.

The first exchanges are expected to take place in October 2017, and the total number of lawyers to participate in the exchanges will be 75. The project is only the first step towards the planned creation of a permanent structure of exchange of lawyers at EU level in the near future that we hope will be financially supported by the EU and extended to more Member States and lawyers.

The European Lawyers Foundation (ELF), in partnership with the Spanish Bar, the Athens Bar, the Italian Bar, the Irish Law Society and the Polish Legal advisors, implemented the TRALIM project over the last 12 months. TRALIM stands for Training of lawyers on the European law relating to immigration and asylum and it was awarded funding by DG Justice. The main achievements of the project were to train more lawyers than foreseen (150 lawyers instead of 130 committed to the European Commission) for a lower cost (20% savings from the forecast budget), all by ensuring high quality of training, smooth organisation of the four training events and high satisfaction of participants and speakers who enthusiastically took part (average satisfaction rate of 4.22/5).

The project was a win-win situation for all the parties directly or indirectly involved. First of all, 150 lawyers from the partner countries received good training from speakers with extensive experience in immigration and asylum cases. The lawyers also had the chance to find out more about the legal framework and procedures followed in other countries and to exchange experiences and business cards with their counterparts from these other countries. The 150 trained lawyers are now more familiar with EU immigration and asylum law, which puts them in a position to offer better advice to their clients when dealing with such cases. Through a multiplier effect, well-trained lawyers can potentially become trainers at national level and disseminate the knowledge they obtained during the TRALIM seminars. Further, partner bars had a unique chance through this project to organise low-cost training activities for their members, with control over the selection processes for national speakers and participants.

The legal aspects linked to the ongoing refugee crisis will continue to be an important issue for the EU and for lawyers practising in EU Member States for years to come. Therefore, building on the success of the TRALIM project, ELF is now working on a continuation, which aims to extend the number of lawyers trained. Further, this new project will include additional seminars on the topic of unaccompanied minor migrants. A new component is also being considered, namely the inclusion of funds for some of the participating lawyers to go to migration hotspots for a short period of time. This will allow these lawyers to become familiar with the situation in the hotspots and to learn from local lawyers who represent migrants in these places. The continuation project will be presented to the EU for funding, and it will show the commitment of EU lawyers to the protection of migrant rights.

The European Commission has dedicated the year 2017 to focused actions to combat all forms of violence against women, which are promoted through the Non.No.Nein campaign. Information about these actions is now  available on the European Commission’s dedicated website on violence against women. TRAVAW (Training of Lawyers in legal cases of Violence against Women), included as one of the main projects in this campaign, aims to promote the role of lawyers as part of the solution to the problem of gender-based violence.

To read the full TRAVAW story on the European Commission’s website click here. To download the article in PDF format click here.

The testimonials from members of the project team which feature in the European Commission’s campaign are available below.