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The European Law Faculties Association (ELFA) was founded in 1995 in Leuven by more than 80 Faculties of Law located in different universities across Europe. The organisation now has more than 180 members from countries within the E.U. and beyond, it acts as an international forum for the discussion of many legal topics related to legal education.

Currently, the most important focus of ELFA's activities is the reform of legal education in Europe. Through this website and the European Journal of Legal Education (EJLE), it provides information about the current state of legal education in Europe and an international forum for the discussion of the impact of the Sorbonne-Bologna Declaration on the study of law. ELFA organises an Annual Conference at which members are encouraged to participate in a range of discussions and workshops concerning various aspects of legal education.

The next Annual Conference will take place on the 24th to 26th February 2011 in Warshaw and will dedicated to the subject of University Autonomy.

Impressions of the Annual Conference, 25th to 27th February 2010, Ljubljana

THANKS

As the outgoing President of the Board of ELFA, I would like to thank all those who contributed to the success of the annual meeting in Ljubljana. It was a great pleasure and honour to be able to organize this event, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

In primis, let me thank the Secretary of ELFA, Ms Helena Ferro de Gouveia for the excellent work that she executed with kindness, precision and reliability. I would also like to thank the members of the Board who contributed by chairing the workshops or plenary sessions, by giving proposals, and by helping accomplish the programme.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Dean of the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana, Professor Pirnat, for his generous hospitality.

My special thanks and appreciation go to the group of students of the Ljubljana Faculty of Law who took over a number of tasks and performed them with charm, reliability and accuracy.

I would also like to thank all participants who, through their discussions, contributed to the level of discourse at the event and to the quality of the final resolutions.

Last but not least, I would like to thank the President of the Republic of Slovenia, HE Danilo Türk, for his keynote address of the meeting. By choosing to attend a meeting of ELFA he helped to establish a precedent for future meetings, not least through his speech, which contributed significantly to the intellectual energy of the conference.

Prof. Dr. Janez Kranjc

The President of the Republic of Slovenia, Danilo Türk ,

adressing the meeting.

The members of ELFAs Board and some of the participants at the

Ljubljana Conference 2010

On 12 March 2010, the Ministers of the now 47 countries participating in the Bologna Process adopted the Budapest-Vienna Declaration and officially launched the European Higher Education Area. Read more

The Conference of the European Higher Education Area Ministers was followed by a meeting with Ministers from different parts of the world in the Second Bologna Policy Forum on "Building the Global Knowledge Society: Systemic and Institutional Change in Higher Education" that was concluded with the Vienna Bologna Policy Forum Statement.

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On 28 and 29 April 2009, the Ministers responsible for higher education in the then 46 countries of the Bologna Process met in Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve to establish the priorities for the European Higher Education Area until 2020. They highlighted in particular the importance of lifelong learning, widening access to higher education, and mobility. By 2020, at least 20% of those graduating in the European Higher Education Area should have had a study or training period abroad.

For more details read the full Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve Communiqué or see the conference website.

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Trends 2010 published by the European University Association is the latest in a report series contributing to the discussions in the Bologna Process. Trends reports are generally timed with the biannual ministerial meetings and track progress of Bologna implementation, within a two-year timescale. Trends 2010 is different. The report has been timed to coincide with the launch of the European Higher Education Area in March 2010 and has a much larger scope both in its focus and longitudinal aspect.

For more information read the full report.

E.J.L.E.

In its efforts to revive the European Journal of Legal Education (EJLE) and to transform it into as useful a tool as possible for all the members of ELFA, the Board of ELFA has decided to publish it online.

At a time characterized by various time-sensitive reforms that pertain to the field of legal education, the delay between the submission and the publication of the papers was probably an important limitation of the EJLE. The Board hopes that by putting it online, the EJLE will thus also be better placed to allow for a swift reaction to important events in the field of legal education, and to facilitate the communication between the members of ELFA wanting to share their expertise in this field.

The online edition of EJLE has two parts. For those interested in the more researched and scholarly discussion, there will be a peer-reviewed part where all the articles will be reviewed and published only if the peer-review will be positive.

For those wanting to share their thoughts with others without a previous peer-review, however, another part of EJLE will be made available. Here, the papers will be published as originally submitted, undergoing but a formal examination by the editors.

The reason for this double nature of EJLE is obvious. It wishes to simultaneously serve two purposes: to allow for a more scholarly and research-oriented examination of processes going on in the field of legal education on the one hand and to provide for a more practically-oriented exchange of information on the other.

European Law Faculties Association

European Law Faculties Association (E.L.F.A.) Europäische Vereinigung der Rechtsfakultäten (E.V.R.F.) Association des Facultés de Droit en Europe (A.F.D.E.) Asociación de Facultades de Derecho en Europa (A.F.D.E.)