ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT The establishment of the European Higher Education Area has not only
triggered changes in legal education in Spain but also in access to the legal professions.
This paper briefly addresses the implementation of the new educational system in order to
understand the scope of the modifications that the legal professions are undergoing. The
new educational model has been viewed as a specific opportunity to tackle the lack of
professional control of lawyers, which was considered an anomaly within the European
Union. A new entry system was implemented in 2011, and this paper also discusses the
risks and challenges that this poses. To this end, the main traits of the legal profession and
legal education prior to 2011 are first presented, following which the new system is
described and its strengths and weaknesses compared to the former system are highlighted.
The change of model, accompanied as it is by the current economic downturn, is not only
likely to produce a fall in the number of junior lawyers but also to endanger less well-off
students’ access to the profession. On the plus side, it brings legal education up to date and
establishes the basis for enhancing interaction between stakeholders and thus for improving
the quality of lawyers’ education.
