Christmas wishes from AEA-EAL President
Dear Friends,
Year 2020 is about to end. Twelve months different than any other ones, faced by our generation, marked with the Covid-19 pandemic and affecting our professional and private life in all aspects. The activity of the AEA-EAL has changed with moving our events and other actions into virtual reality. For the first time our General Assembly was organized in hybrid form, and participants of the 2nd Twinning of Lawyers met online. All our conferences and events moved to virtual space, which gave us new opportunities but also limited personal contacts and mutual interactions between colleagues from various countries and continents.
Let us look over this time. We conducted many of webinars and online meetings. I will mention only some of them. . After very successful networking event – first Twinning of Lawyers from East and West held in Gdańsk (Poland) in 2019, we held in September of this year the second Twinning, but due to pandemic – in a form of virtual reunion. Representatives of more than 15 countries from Asia, South America and Europe gathered together again to exchange experience and to maintain friendly relations. The other initiative – for the first time we made an event in Spanish language for our colleagues from Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay. Every year we are invited to participate the European President’s Conference in Vienna and yearly lawyers’ San Ramon de Penyacort festivity in Barcelona. This year we were requested by the Council of Europe to give the expertise in the framework of drafting the European Convention on the profession of a lawyer. As member of Defense of Defenders network we support our colleagues persecuted for their professional activity. We also updated our communication channels – new layout of the website and Newsletter with the aim of making them in more communicative form. I do hope you will enjoy those changes.
Taking this opportunity, I wish to invite all of you for our first event in forthcoming year – workshop on mediation, which is taking place on January 28, 2021. More information will be available soon on our website.
So as the calendar page turns to the New Year, let me thank for your continued dedication and support for our actions. The AEA-EAL may be strong only because of your engagement – our members and friends as speakers, co-organizers and back-stage supporters of all many activities of the Association. I do hope that in 2021 we will do even more together as members of international legal community. It is a great honour for me to lead the AEA-EAL and I am looking forward to a successful year 2021 with common efforts to promote networking, continuing legal training and fostering independent profession for the good of our clients and societies.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Maria Ślązak