Abstract

German legal education faces many of the same conditions, tasks, and potentials as legal education in Italy: both educate lawyers to serve a constitutional democracy embedded in European society. At the same time, German education differs because it travels on a Sonderweg. Such constellations of similarities and differences often promise revealing insights. This contribution’s first step is to present the German Sonderweg, in particular the practical skills students need in the life-defining final exam. These skills do not require education at the university level, so I will show what else the Humboldtian unity of research and education contributes to 21st-century legal orders. The last step establishes European society as a conceptual framework for comparing the discussions on reforming legal education throughout Europe.