Project details

Passau's Chair of Public Law, Media Law and Information Law is developing an online lecture on the Federal Lawyers' Act and related laws and regulations governing the legal profession. This lecture will be offered online as part of the Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern (vhb) course offering.

This introductory-level lecture teaches students the concepts and basics of the laws governing the legal profession, touching on aspects of history, lawyer-client relationship and bar requirements. Furthermore, the lecture is intended to introduce students to legal ethics and virtues.

The chapters at a glance:

• Principles of the laws governing the legal profession
• History
• The lawyer-client relationship
• The subject matter of a representation agreement
• Prohibition to represent conflicting interests
• Confidentiality
• Obligations with respect to the representation agreement, colleagues and the court
• Remuneration
• The law firm and organisational requirements
• Corporate law for law firms
• Employment law for law firms
• Self-presentation
• Advertising
• The structure of the legal profession
• Bar associations
• Admission as a lawyer
• Supervision

This lecture is text-based, as it imparts legal skills in accordance with §43e of the Federal Lawyers' Act (BRAO). It is aimed exclusively at students enrolled in a law programme leading up to the state examination, in which text-based learning is the dominant learning method. Cases, questions and information about legal databases will be offered for each chapter. Students will have the chance to discuss the syllabus in a shared forum.

The planned starting semester for this lecture is summer semester 2018 (the summer semester runs from April to September each year) and will be offered every semester. In accordance with a new regulation under BRAO, lawyers are obliged to attend a lecture on the laws governing the legal profession from 2018 onwards.

The project is funded by Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern (vhb).