TIRANA, JULY 3, 2012     Today, legal education in Albania celebrates the successful completion of year one of the first Continuing Legal Education program (CLE) for Lawyers and Assistant Lawyers. In a ceremony organized at the National Chamber of Advocates (NCA), the Chairman Maksim Haxhia and the USAID Albania Mission representative Marc Ellingstad, recognized the lawyers and assistant lawyers that were able to take full advantage of the CLE program.  

Last year, on May 12, 2011, USAID and NCA signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish this program as an important step in training legal professionals and bringing Albania in line with virtually all other European countries in the field of legal education.  July 9, 2011 marked the launch of the first CLE classes.  The first year of the CLE program piloted in the regional chambers of advocates in Vlora and Durrës has included over 160 training sessions for a total of 12 credits. Classes by well-known 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% of all the lawyers and assistants registered in the Vlora and Durrës chambers.

The CLE program is funded through a 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.

USAID JuST, which began in October 2010, is a five-year project to increase court transparency, fairness and efficiency; bolster watchdog and anticorruption roles of civil society organizations and media; and strengthen the legal profession and legal education in Albania.