Towards a New Model of Legal Education: The Special Case of Luxembourg

Abstract

Luxembourg is a small country, where daily life is marked by multiple exchanges with neighbouring countries while at the same time, being the seat of several European institutions and a major global financial center. This sees that Luxembourg is particularly concerned by the phenomenon of globalization and Europeanization: Due to the very international nature of life and economic activity in Luxembourg, many of its jurists have to deal with international law issues and with foreign law. This probably explains why, today, Luxembourg seems to be one of the European countries most interested in the transnationalization of legal education. Another reason of this interest is that Luxembourg has not an own old legal tradition; its law is a product of different influences of neighbouring countries. Thus, although most Luxembourg lawyers remain attached to French legal culture, they do not, as a rule, have the same negative reaction toward new legal solutions imported from abroad. The main aspect of this particular situation is the new transnationalised bachelor in law created in the University of Luxembourg, which is obligatory from the very outset for all law students. The concept of transnationalisation that led to the reform rests on the idea, of immersing the students, from the very first day of their legal education, in a comparative approach instead of centering the study of law, first, on learning national law and then, eventually, expanding that study to other systems at the end of the course. Nevertheless, teaching national law is not completely sacrificed in the reformed curriculum: along with each transnational course, the students will participate in small-group seminars in which they will work with the specific national law addressing the transnationalised subject matter, thereby learning the basic technical skills of a jurist (analysing legislation and court decisions, legal interpretation, resolving specific factual situations, etc.) as well as the national law.