In order to better prepare prospective lawyers for the profession, the Georgian Bar Association introduced specifically tailored programme for candidates who successfully pass the bar admission test. Council of Europe member states have extensive experience in running such programmes either through special schools or via accredited academic courses. To this end, two Council of Europe experts assessed the draft concept of mandatory traineeship and presented their visions on how to proceed further, taking into account the existing legislative framework and best European practices. The two-day workshop was held on 19-20 February 2016 in Kakheti and was attended by Bar Association leadership, lawyers,  the Director of the High School of Justice and the dean of the Law faculty of Tbilisi State University. This wide representation allowed to cover all aspects of the current system of the legal education to ensure an unified, yet differentiated approach between university-level education and bar-level preparation courses. Participants shared experts’ recommendations and, as a result of the workshop, agreed to proceed with setting up working groups involving lawyers, prosecutors, judges and civil society representatives to design a “competence statement” and agree on a relevant content for both the theoretical and internship components.

This meeting was organised by the EU/CoE Joint Project "Support to the Georgian Bar Association", which is funded by the Programmatic Cooperation Framework for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus. The Council of Europe and European Union are working in partnership with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus to help them meet European standards in human rights, democracy and the rule of law and improve the lives of citizens.