On 26 and 27 of June 2017, the ELFA Board meeting took place in Lisboa (Portugal), in the Faculty of Law of the Universidade de Lisboa. It was the first meeting of the new Board, since the last AGM in Brno (Czech Republic).
Among other issues, the Board members decided to draft a Strategic Plan for ELFA. All the Board members will work in this project so that it can be submitted to approval by the next ELFA General Assembly. The main objectives of this Strategic Plan are to increase ELFA’s visibility and influence, to uplift its activities and international relationships so the association can be more useful for its members, and to guarantee transparency.
In order to fulfil these objectives, the Board members have discussed about a possible new web page with the hope that a new web page can be presented to the General Assembly in Barcelona next April 2018.
Towards our next Annual General Meeting
Another important decision the Board made was to relaunch the European Journal of Legal Education. First steps are being taken in this sense, and hopefully in the next AGM there may be good news about it.
Moreover, the President Prof. Dr. Josep Maria de Dios Marcer presented the first draft Program of 2018 ELFA Annual General Meeting and Conference Barcelona, which was approved by the Board and will be discussed and completed during next meetings. The AGM and Conference will take place in Barcelona from 25 to 27 April 2018, so please save the date in your calendar for this event.
The Board also debated about how to expand and strengthen ELFA’s international connections. As a way to enrich our work, and looking forward to offering new relationship opportunity channels to all ELFA members, the Board decided to open ELFA’s activities to other legal education associations or institutions of different parts of the world, and to collaborate with them. The Board has also decided to remember all the associated members regarding the ELFA Award. The deadline for new submissions for the 2017 award is 31st of October 2017.
In this meeting, the Board accepted the application to join ELFA, in accordance with the Articles of Incorporation, of the Faculty of Law of Atilim University (Ankara, Turkey) and Fordham University Law School (New York, United States of America).
Furthermore, in Lisboa the Board also had a meeting with different Portuguese universities’ representatives. A very interesting debate took place, in which all participants had the chance to present their concerns about current legal education matters, and to share comments and suggestions about how ELFA could be useful for them.
The ELFA Board wants to take this opportunity to specially thank the Faculty of Law of the Universidade de Lisboa for its valuable contribution and its generous support in the organization of these meetings.