ELFA: Dedicated to legal education

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 today has more than 150 members from countries within Europe and beyond.

ELFA acts as an international forum for the discussion of legal topics related to legal education, and negotiates and signs cooperation agreements with governmental agencies and educational entities in Europe and internationally.

Every year ELFA organises its annual conference at which members are encouraged to participate in its plenary, workshops and round tables. To support researchers it organises its ELFA Award for the best Doctoral Thesis on European Law.

If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.

Louis D. Brandeis

Mission

ELFA represents and promotes the interests of its members in the field of legal education and research vis-à-vis EU institutions, international organisations as well as associations of legal professionals.

ELFA CHRONICLE

2018     ELFA promotes the 1st International meeting of Law Faculty Associations

2017     ELFA calls to ensure that access to justice remain affordable and open to all

2017     ELFA calls to ensure EU funding to complement action by Member States

2015     The Chinese Association of Law Faculties indicates its interest in joining ELFA

2014     ELFA calls to ensure that Public sector law faculties are sufficiently funded

2013    ELFA considers teaching and research as their core tasks

2012    Cooperation agreements with the Association of American Law Schools and the Southeastern Association of Law Schools

2012     Launching of first ELFA Award for the best European Doctoral Thesis on European Law

2011     ELFA asks EU institutions and governments to discontinue budgetary reductions

2009   ELFA creates a list of experts dealing with the ECTS system

1995    Foundation of ELFA in Leuven by more than 80 faculties of Law across Europe

BOARD MEMBERS

The ELFA Board members and the current President

Barbara Pozzo
Barbara PozzoUniversità degli Studi dell’Insubria – Como
President

Barbara Pozzo is Full Professor of Private Comparative Law at the
Università degli Studi dell’Insubria – Como.

Prof. Barbara Pozzo is professor of Private Comparative Law at the University of Insubria – Como, where she is
also Chairholder of an UNESCO Chair on Gender Equality and Womens Rights in the Multicultural Society.

She holds a JD from the University of Milan and a PhD in comparative Law from the University of Florence. She has studied in Germany (Max-Planck-Institute of Comparative Law and Private International Law – Hamburg) and France (Faculté Internationale de Droit Comparé – Strasbourg) and has been visiting professor at various foreign universities (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina – Florianopolis; Hitotsubashi University – Tokyo; UC Davis School of Law; Pacific University, Mc George School of Law; Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge).

Prof. Pozzo has been from 2015 to 2021 Dean of the Law School at the University of Insubria – Como and since 2013 she is the Director of its Post- graduate program on Fashion Law, organised in co-operation with the University of Milan. She is member of the Council of the European Law Institute (ELI) and of the Board of the European Law Faculties Association (ELFA). In 2022 she has been elected President of SIRD, the Italian Society for Comparative Law Research. She is member of the Editorial board of the European Review of Private Law.

Izabela Kraśnicka
Izabela KraśnickaUniversity of Bialystok
First Vice-President

Izabela Kraśnicka is an Associate Professor of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bialystok.

Dr hab. Izabela Kraśnicka is Vice-Dean for International Cooperation and Development at the Faculty of Law, University of Bialystok, in Poland.

Izabela Kraśnicka holds a doctoral and post-doctoral Degree in Law. She specializes and publishes her works in Public International Law (with special emphasis on International Aviation Law), US Legal System and Legal Education.

Dr Kraśnicka runs international relations of her law school as a Vice-Dean for International Cooperation and Development. She is also directing the Legal Center of Research on Education and supervising the Summer Law Program with Michigan State University College of Law. She is a board member of the Polish Legal Clinics Foundation and member of the Steering Committee of the Global Alliance for Justice Education.

She has been attending ELFA annual meetings since 2005 and currently serves as a Deputy-Editor of the European Journal of Legal Education published by ELFA.

Lukas Rass-Masson
Lukas Rass-MassonUniversity Toulouse 1 Capitole
Vice-president and Treasurer

Lukas Rass-Masson is Professor of Law at University Toulouse 1 Capitole

Lukas Rass-Masson is Professor of Law specialised in Private International Law, International Commercial and Business Law, Family Law and European Law. After previous positions at University Paris II, Panthéon-Assas and University Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, he was appointed Professor (Professeur des Universités) at University Toulouse 1 Capitole in 2017. In June 2018, he became Director of the European School of Law Toulouse (ESLToulouse) and in December 2020 was appointed Vice-President of the University in charge of governance.

Previous responsibilities include a position as legal officer at the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference and as independent expert for the European Union (Commission and Parliament).

After an award-winning doctoral dissertation on “the Foundations of European Private International Family Law”, his current research focuses on the methodology of European Private Law and global Private International Law, especially in an Asian-European perspective.

His publications, in English, French and German, include books, articles in well renowned law reviews and book chapters.

Lana Bubalo
Lana BubaloUniversity of Stavanger
Vice-President and Secretary General

Lana Bubalo is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Stavanger, School of Business and Law in Norway.

Dr. Lana Bubalo currently holds the position as the Head of Department for Accounting and Law and Director of the Bachelor of Law and Master Law programs.

She also works as an examiner and supervisor at the University of Bergen and University of Tromsø. She has previous experience as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law at University in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Faculty of Law at the University of Zenica in Bosnia and Hercegovina. 

She holds a PhD in law from “Džemal Bijedić” University in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her areas of interest are tort law, protection of personality rights, digital human rights, data protection law, law of remedies, comparative law and intellectual property law.

She was a lecturer at international summer schools in Germany and Estonia and held guest lectures at University of Granada in Spain, University of Law and Economics in Vietnam and Penn State University in USA. Lana Bubalo takes part in several research projects, serves on editorial boards and has worked as a moot court trainer.

She is a member of the European Law Institute, NoLesLaw- a network of Legal empirical scholars, Global Digital Human Rights Network (GDHR Network), Member of the board of Norwegian association for comparative law, Advisory Board of the CENTENOL- Center for research on EEA Law.

She has published several articles in English, Norwegian and Bosnian.

Ovidiu Ioan Dumitru
Ovidiu Ioan DumitruUniversity of Bucharest
Vice-President

Ovidiu Ioan Dumitru is an Associate Professor at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies.

Dr. Dumitru holds a PhD in Law from the University of Bucharest and a PhD in Energy from the University of Petrosani. He completed an Executive MBA from the Vienna University of Business & Economics and a LLM in Business Law.

In 2020 he started holding the position of Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies.

He has published extensively articles and books on Company Law, European business law, Competition Law or Contract Law.

He is a founding member of several societies and has been involved actively in several networks including the Romanian Construction Law Association (founder and former Chairman for the period 2014-2022), the Board of the European Society of Construction Law (2018-2024), the Romanian Society of Business Law (founder and former general Secretary) and the European Society of Banking and Financial  Law – Romania (vice chairman from 2024).

He has been for the last years the editor-in-chief of two international indexed pee-reviewed journals: the Romanian Construction Law Review and the European Business Law Journal.

He has also been entrepreneur and an attorney-at-law from 2005.

Elif Küzeci
Elif KüzeciBilkent University in Ankara
Vice-President

Elif Küzeci is an Associate Professor at Bilkent University Faculty of Law in Ankara, Turkey.

Dr Küzeci is currently Vice-Dean at the Faculty of Law of Bilkent University in Ankara, Türkiye.

She holds a PhD from Ankara University on data protection law, completed in 2010, and an LL.M. in Public Law from the same university, awarded in 2004, with a thesis on freedom of expression on the Internet.

She serves as Associate Editor of the International Data Privacy Law Journal published by Oxford University Press and as Chair of the Artificial Intelligence Monitoring Group of the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO. She is a founding member and former Chair of the Internet Society Türkiye Chapter ISOC-TR. In 2016, she was invited as an expert to the Parliamentary Commission of the Turkish Grand National Assembly on the Personal Data Protection Act.

Her research focuses on data protection law, AI ethics, and the impact of information and communication technologies on law. In January 2026, her project Legal and Ethical Analysis of Neurotechnologies, in which she is principal investigator, was funded under the TÜBİTAK 1001 programme, Türkiye’s leading national research scheme.

She is the author of three books: Human Rights and Public Freedoms with Prof. Ahmet Mumcu, eighth edition, 2019; Personal Data Protection, fourth edition, 2020; and Digital Elephant, 2021. She has published extensively in Turkish and English.

Gema Tomás Martínez
Gema Tomás MartínezUniversity of Deusto
Ex-President, advisor to the Board

Gema Tomás is Full Professor of Civil Law at the University of Deusto.

Gema Tomás holds a Law degree and a PhD in Civil law from the University of Deusto. She is currently Dean of the Deusto Law School. She was Substitute Judge (Magistrada) at the Provincial Court (1999-2002) and has collaborated with the Basque Government in the drafting of regulatory projects.

In the academic field she combines research and teaching at Deusto Law School in the areas of European Contract law, Roman law, Spanish Law of Obligations and Gender studies. She has been visiting professor at Antofagasta University in Chile and Bayreuth University in Germany, and has conducted international research at Boston College, the University of Amsterdam and the University of London, among others. She is a national reporter for Spain in the international network Common Core of European Private Law.

Dr Tomás is a Member of the Societé Internationale de Histoire et Droit de la Antiquité, the Academia Vasca del Derecho and the European Law Institute (ELI).

FORMER ELFA PRESIDENTS

2025-2026 Gema Tomás Martínez (University of Deusto)

2024-2025 Jivko Draganov (University of National and World Economy Sofia)

2023-2024  Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm (University of Edinburgh)

2022-2023  Andreas R. Ziegler (University of Lausanne)

2019-2022  Marek Grzybowski (University of Warsaw)

2018-2019  Michele Graziadei (University of Torino)

2017-2018  Josep Maria de Dios (Autonomous University of Barcelona)

2016-2017  Vera Kalvodová (Masaryk University)

2015-2016  Laurence Gormley (University of Groningen)

2014-2015  Haluk Kabaalioglu (Yeditepe University)

2013-2014  Anne Klebes-Pélissier (University of Strasbourg)

2012-2013  Reiner Schulze (University of Münster)

2011-2012  Manuel Bermejo Castrillo (University Carlos III of Madrid)

2010-2011  Jacek Petzel (University of Warsaw)

2009-2010  Janez Kranjc (University of Ljubljana)

2008-2009 Pascal Pichonnaz (University of Fribourg)

2007-2008 Heribert Hirte (University of Hamburg)

2006-2007 Blanca Vilà Costa (Autonomous University of Barcelona)

2005-2006 Fiona Cownie (University of Hull)

2004-2005 Willibald Posch (Karl-Franzens University Graz)

2003-2004 Norbert Olszak (University of Strasbourg)

2002-2003 Julian Lonbay (University of Birmingham)

2001-2002 Norbert Reich (Riga Graduate School of Law)

2000-2001 Stefania Bariatti (University of Milano)

1999-2000 Jaap Doek (Free University Amsterdam)

1998-1999 Dominique Breillat (University of Poitiers)

1997-1998 Hilmar Fenge (University of Hannover)

1995-1997 Frans Vanistendael (Catholic University Leuven)

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