Cross‐border e‐Justice services and tools
The Find‐A‐Lawyer Project
Alonso HERNÁNDEZ‐PINZÓN
Managing Director – European Lawyers’ Foundation
Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE)
The CCBE represents the bars and law societies of 32 member countries and 13 further associate and observer countries, and through them more than 1 million European lawyers
European Lawyers’ Foundation (ELF)
Introduction
The main aim of the Foundation is to implement added‐value projects that create services for European lawyers and on issues related of Justice’s policies in Europe.
Furthermore, the Foundation may also implement projects related to other objectives as Human rights and Rule of Law.
The Find‐A‐Lawyer Project
Find‐A‐Lawyer 1 European Lawyers’ Directory
Find‐A‐Lawyer 2 Verification of Lawyers’ e‐ID
Find‐A‐Lawyer 1
A search for a Criminal lawyer in Paris fluent in English…
Find‐A‐Lawyer 1
…ends up with the following search results:
Find‐A‐Lawyer 1
…and the following contact details of the selected lawyer:
Find‐A‐Lawyer 2
Creation of an IT prototype for verifying the lawyers’ role in cross‐border electronic proceedings
Response provided from registers solely owned and managed by the national bars
FAL 2 will verify whether a person is a qualified lawyer in his/her home jurisdiction
Role verification is based on the use of digital certificates owned by lawyers
Find‐A‐Lawyer 2 and e‐CODEX
In the framework of e‐CODEX, FAL 2 offers the necessary solution to lawyers’ role verification thus enabling e.g. lawyer to court communication
FAL 2 is piloting the EPO question: “Is this person a qualified lawyer able to send a claim related to an EPO?”
An example of FAL 2 working in e‐CODEX use cases
Find‐A‐Lawyer 2 – An example
A German lawyer enters FAL 2, uploads his certificate and requests a confirmation from his bar about his lawyer status…
Find‐A‐Lawyer 2
... in real‐time the lawyer gets the following answer from his bar transmitted electronically through the FAL 2 system:
Find‐A‐Lawyer 2
A Dutch citizen tries to sign a claim through FAL 2 as a Dutch lawyer but he receives the following answer from the system: