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Helping to improve higher legal education in former Soviet countries is one of the most important initiatives of PILI’s Legal Education Reform program. With the support of the OSI Higher Education Support Program (HESP), PILI has undertaken a major project to promote sustainable reform of legal education in the FSU. On May 14-16, 2008, project participants gathered at the Second Annual Project Planning Meeting in Kiev.
Law faculty from six partner universities in former Soviet countries and facilitators from PILI, HESP, and American and Dutch law schools participated in the event, which incorporated a two-day teacher training and a planning meeting.
Similar to current efforts in Central and Eastern Europe, reforming legal education in the framework of the EU-led Bologna Process has become a priority on the policy agenda in former Soviet countries. Legal education in the FSU is confronted with a persistent lack of institutional support, compatible education policies and access to innovative teaching models, such as clinical legal education programs. Therefore, a robust strategy is required to ensure that reform is sustained. 
PILI aims to develop sustainable reform in the FSU through pedagogical training and by garnering institutional support for innovative, practice-oriented teaching approaches. Funded by HESP and implemented from 2006 to 2009, the project promotes legal education reform with the aim of producing competent and ethical lawyers with the knowledge, skills, abilities and motivation to help build just, rights-respecting societies.
The teacher-training sessions moved faculty beyond instructing their students about the theory of law to teaching critical thinking and incorporating student engagement in active learning. Participants had the opportunity to experiment with new methodologies and to exchange ideas about curricula and assessment. Faculty gained competencies in setting learning objectives for their courses and incorporating active teaching methods. By enhancing the ability of faculty to teach critical thinking skills to students, legal education - and by extension the legal profession - in the FSU will ultimately be improved.
 Law faculty from Armenia, Moldova, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine benefited from plenary sessions that introduced important pedagogical concepts such as student engagement, teaching critical thinking and instilling practical skills and ethical decision-making. They also engaged in group work in which participants prepared classes with clearly defined teaching objectives, specific active methodologies to achieve those objectives and demonstrations of their mock courses.
The Annual Meeting included a day of planning to identify the accomplishments of the project over the last year as well as challenges that remain. Each partner law school presented the status of their strategic action plans with respect to curriculum enhancement (such as the introduction of clinical legal education programs) and institutional development. Finally, the planning sessions focused participants on the project's future goals and set the agenda for the final project year.
The meeting provided a forum for exchange and communication among the faculty from the partner universities, PILI and the resource team representatives. Understanding the obstacles to legal education reform in each local context of the law faculties was especially valuable to the project team.
Several events designed to further the goals of the project will be held in 2008: an international conference in Krakow (June 19-21), a summer course at Central European University on "Teaching Law, Human Rights and Ethics" (July 7-11), a project planning meeting, and a series of curriculum development workshops (throughout the fall).
To download more information about the Annual Meeting, click the links below:
To learn more about PILI's Legal Education Reform program, click here.
Partner University Law Faculties
Yerevan State University (Armenia)
State University of Moldova (Moldova)
American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyz Republic)
Tbilisi State University (Georgia)
Donetsk National University (Ukraine)
National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine)
Resource Team
Public Interest Law Institute
Open Society Institute, HESP
International Office of Faculty of Law, Utrecht University
Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America
Brooklyn Law School
Georgetown University Law Center
Columbia University School of Law
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