“Make men work together, show them that beyond their differences and geographical boundaries there lies a common interest” (Jean Monnet)

What comes to your mind when you think about the ways of successful development in your profession? Would it be the successful studies at the university, busy workload? Building up the long-term experience? All of these might be the answer; however sharing the knowledge with fellow colleagues is one of the key factors for success in a career. As they say “sharing is caring”. If we care about ourselves, we have to share our ideas in order for them to get onto the stage and to be tested under the light of academic scrutiny. As a result of such scrutiny one does not get weaker, rather it benefits from the possibilty to become more confident about its position.

From 31 March to 2 April 2016 the “Central European Law Student Conference” took place in Maribor, Slovenia, which was the first conferences of its kind under the Jean Monnet foundation project. At the conference, the panels included experts from leading European universities (such as Cambridge and Oxford), different EU Institutions as well as legal professionals of every generation. All the nine different sessions had the same overarching theme (“Strengthening the Rule of Law in Europe”), which is beneficial not only to the lawyers but to all the citizens and member countries of the Union. The conference enabled the speakers to present their critical analyses of the current issues in the European Law in conjunction with the member state national laws.

The conference itself was significant in a way that it covered the variety fields of law from human rights to environmental and commercial law; therefore the participants had the opportunity to get engaged with the active discussions and exchange the ideas about different legal issues. Oppenheim associate, Sarolta Szabó (who is doing a PhD at ELTE University) held a presentation on the new European rules on choice of law, while Oppenheim paralegal Tamuna Beridze presented a critical analysis of the proposed new European rules on alternative and online dispute resolution. One of the issues in this respect was whether the introduction of these rules by European Commission was indeed necessary and to what extent they could be useful for European citizens

The papers of the speakers of the conference will be published in the Conference Book and Online Journal Economic Law Review.