Standardisation of the professional traineeship of lawyers with the EU assistance
On 15 May 2023, the draft Methodology on professional traineeship of lawyers was presented at the headquarters of the Moldovan Union of Lawyers. The event was organised under the Project “Enhance transparency, accountability of and access to the judiciary system”, implemented by the Central Agency for Project Management in Lithuania and Expertise France, funded by the European Union. The purpose of developing and applying the Methodology is to standardise, optimise and order the stages of the professional traineeship of lawyers.
The development of the document was preceded by the conduct of a representative online survey for mentor lawyers and trainee lawyers, in order to collect relevant information regarding the current practices of carrying out professional traineeship. The results of the survey demonstrated the need to develop a unitary document and establish clear and consistent regulations regarding the professional traineeship for lawyers.
In order to respond to the identified needs, the draft Methodology sets the objectives of the professional traineeship for lawyers that aim to develop a spectrum of abilities and skills inherent to the activity of a lawyer, namely: advocacy, negotiation and mediation skills, legal argumentation, communication and advice, drafting skills and legal research, knowledge of the normative and institutional/organisational framework, including the understanding and application of the ethical standards of the lawyers’ profession. In addition, the rights and obligations of the mentor lawyer and the trainee lawyer, the reporting and evaluation of the professional traineeship, as well as the logistical aspects of the traineeship process were regulated: the way of drawing up and keeping the personal file of the trainee lawyer, the conditions for substituting the mentor lawyer and suspension or termination of the professional traineeship.
An important part of the Methodology are its annexes, which include all the forms and document templates applied during the professional traineeship. During the event, it was mentioned that all forms and templates will be integrated on the Intranet platform of the Lawyers’ Union intended for mentoring lawyers and trainee lawyers. In this context, it was underlined that the Intranet platform will be integrated into the architecture of the new web page of the Moldovan Lawyers’ Union, which is being developed with the support of the “Enhance transparency, accountability of and access to the judiciary system” Project.
The event was attended by representatives of the leadership of the Moldovan Lawyers’ Union, the Lawyers’ Training Centre, as well as the members of the Licensing Commission and the Committee for Ethics and Discipline of the Moldovan Lawyers’ Union. Following the discussions during the event, the representatives of the Moldovan Lawyers’ Union assured that after the Methodology will be discussed among lawyers and modified if needed, it will be approved by the Council of the Moldovan Lawyers’ Union.