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Event Summary- The Future of Legal Education
On April 11, the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Brita Wagener, hosted a reception in collaboration with American Friends of Bucerius. An intimate group of law professionals gathered to hear Professor Dr. Katharina Boele-Woelki, the president of Bucerius Law School, give a talk on “The Future of Legal Education.”
Dr. Boele-Woelki discussed the importance of inclusion and cultural integration in law education. She pointed out the inherent gaps in awareness of any education that excludes comparative law on international legal systems. Discussion followed on the predominance of American and English law, particularly the tendency to adhere to the legal standards of New York and London. There was emphasis on the importance of expanding past that in the future, to grow the field by making it more multicultural. It all starts with today’s students.
As with any discussion of the future, technology was a predominant theme for the night. It has steadily spread to every legal field, from IT law (of course) to medicine. Not only that, but the implications of advanced artificial intelligence mixed with superior processing speeds present interesting prospects for how technology can be used in law. There was even debate over whether computers would one day be able to complete a lawyer’s job completely— with the apparent consensus being no.
Law Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Katharina Boele-Woelki began her tenure as President of Bucerius Law School on October 1st, 2015. Boele-Woelki had already joined Bucerius Law School as the Claussen Simon Foundation Professor of Comparative Law, effective September 1st, 2015.
Prior to her arrival at Bucerius Law School, Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Katharina Boele-Woelki was a professor of private international law, comparative law, and family law at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and an extraordinary professor at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Boele-Woelki studied law at the University of Göttingen and the Freie Universität Berlin and completed doctoral work at the FU Berlin. She taught and conducted research in the Netherlands beginning in 1982 and served as a member of the Faculty of Law at Utrecht University starting in 1990.