Based on the reading, How has the European Union altered legal education and the legal profession in both common law and civil law countries?

 

 

Reading, 

The European Union is increasingly harmonizing the legal profession across borders, that lawyers in one country in the EU must be able to practice law in all other countries in the EU, because the EU, after all, is founded on the free movement of goods, labor, services, and capital. Integration is still slow. This is primarily a function of language difficulties, that a lawyer from Portugal who wants to practice in Poland will have to know the Polish language as well as the Polish law. In addition, the structure of the legal profession between common and civil law countries is quite different. How will a lawyer from Portugal who moves to England translate as a barrister or a solicitor? These kinks haven't been completely worked out yet. But suffice it to say that the legal profession in Europe is rapidly liberalizing. This is also true of legal education and university education generally, that credits now transfer across the European Union to different universities, for instance. And degrees are becoming standardized. In the common law world, it's very common for a practicing lawyer to switch career paths, perhaps from advocate to judge to scholar and vice versa. In the civil law world, that is not common, that law graduates must choose a career path at graduation from law school that's very likely to be final. It's very rare to change career paths later in life.