Global Legal Skills Conference

“I must be there”. That’s what I said to myself last year when I heard about the Global Legal Skills Conference for the first time.

Being passionate about law and teaching Legal English, I could not miss such an opportunity this year. And here is why?

First of all, the Global Legal Skills Conference is an international conference that fosters the support and development of legal skills training for law students and advocates around the world.

Secondly, it focuses on international legal education and essential skills, including legal writing, legal research, legal reasoning, legal English, translations and advocacy skills. It is what I deal with on a daily basis helping legal professionals achieve their goals through mastering the English language of law.

Thirdly, the conference audience includes legal writing professionals, international and comparative law professors, judges, lawyers, court translators, and others involved in international and transnational law around the world.

Having arrived at the Global Legal Skills Conference, which was held in Brno on 28-31 May , I was impressed by how serious this event was.

Diverse expertise

• More than 120 participants
• law professors from different law schools in the USA – I’ve never seen so many in one room
• the law faculty staff from top European universities
• practicing lawyers, and judge Katerina Šimáčkova from the European Court of Human Rights, who opened the plenary with “How to Teach Human Rights: What a Lawyer Needs to Know for Success in International Practice.”

Incredible connections

• It was an honour for me meet Mark E. Wojcik, the founder of the Global Legal Skills Conference Series and a Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law.
• Also, I was introduced to Professor Christopher R. Kelly (the University of Arkansas) who has been to Ukraine numerous times as a guest lecturer at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. So grateful for his contribution to legal education and supporting Ukraine.
• And it was truly a joy to reconnect with my EULETA colleagues, some of whom I had met only online at our monthly legal English teachers’ meetings.

Packed agenda

The conference schedule was packed with interesting sessions on law, legal skills and language and it was really hard for me to choose which one to attend. The energy, from both the speakers and the audience, was incredible.

A huge thank-you to David Sehnalek and the Masaryk University Law Faculty for hosting the Global Legal Skills conference in such a beautiful venue, and to everyone who made it possible.

It was my first time attending but was really valuable to connect with people who are passionate about law, legal and language skills. And it has given me some fresh ideas on how to make my legal English programs even better, and I can’t wait to see the impact!

Still feeling deeply inspired …