Improving society’s legal awareness and legal culture in our country is the demand of time. Ensuring further improvement of the legal system of Uzbekistan, creating the legal foundations of a market economy, creating an investment environment and ensuring the inviolability of private property and its reliable protection, strengthening national statehood and the legal system depend on the legal profession whose representatives think in a modern way and make decisions independently.

Satisfying the needs of public authorities and administration in highly qualified legal professionals requires a radical improvement in the professional training of lawyers based on modern knowledge. In this regard, the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated June 27, 2019 No. 531 “On further improvement of the Lawyers’ Training Center under the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan” is one of the important steps.

New responsibilities were assigned to the Lawyers’ Training Center by the resolution which also clarified the tasks and directions of activity in accordance with the newly approved Charter of the Center.

In particular, the main goal of the Center was declared the provision of continuing education and retraining of employees of the justice and advocacy system, as well as employees of the legal service (legal counsel) of government bodies and organizations, regardless of their organizational and legal form, as well as specialists in other areas.

In 1997-2019, more than 30,000 trainees underwent retraining and continuing education at the Center. A notable positive result is the fact that in the 2018-2019 academic year, 2,961 trainees were trained at the Center. Of these, 2,853 trainees improved their skills in continuing education courses while 108 trainees were trained in retraining courses. At the same time, in February 2019, in order to ensure the implementation of the decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. UP-5618 dated January 9, 2019 “On the fundamental improvement of the system of raising legal awareness and legal culture in society”, in agreement with the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 246 journalists and representatives of the media covering legal issues from all regions of our republic were trained at the Center.

In addition, field training courses were organized for lawyers working in the regions.

In accordance with the “Mediator Training Program”, approved by the order of the Ministry of Justice dated January 31, 2019, which was adopted in order to ensure the implementation of the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On Mediation”, starting from the current academic year, the Center has organized a monthly special course on retraining and continuing education of professional mediators, and in the framework of this course, 22 trainees who had completed the course were awarded the certificates of mediators for the first time in Uzbekistan.

Further, in accordance with the decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On measures to organize the activities of the Intellectual Property Agency under the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan” No. PP-4380 dated July 1, 2019, the Center was assigned additional tasks such as providing continuing education to intellectual property professionals and providing training to patent attorneys.

Training at the Center is aimed at enabling trainees to develop leadership skills and effective time management skills by introducing such modules as “Time management and effective organization of the workflow”, “Conflict resolution”, “Communication with citizens and participants of the case”, “Development of managerial skills”, “The ability to manage stress in the workplace”, “Culture of legal speech”, “Advocacy ethics” and others.

In addition, modern pedagogical and information technologies as well as innovative methods are used in the educational process. To ensure training at a high level, classrooms, modern sound recording equipment, large-screen TVs for demonstrating slide presentations and videos have been allocated accordingly.

Also, to ensure a close correlation between training and practice, the Center has specially equipped classrooms, such as a “moot court room” and a “mediation room”.

In order to effectively complete training and provide knowledge, develop practical skills of the trainees and provide latest updates in the specialty, the administration and teaching staff of the Center hold meetings with trainees.

Today, the faculties of the Center are represented by highly qualified professors and lecturers, of which 8 are doctors of legal science and professors, 7 are candidates of legal science and associate professors. Today, the scientific potential of the Center constitutes 100 percent. In addition to highly qualified lecturers, leading scholars and experts of our country are involved in the educational process, including parliamentarians, representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Constitutional Court, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Republican Center for Forensic Expertise, the Chamber of Advocates and other state bodies and public associations.

Over the past three years, the teaching staff of the Center has published more than 20 monographs, textbooks, teaching aids, about 100 academic articles and theses on legal issues. Professors and lecturers of the Center actively take part in the preparation of draft legal acts.

Professors and lecturers of the Center actively participate with reports in prestigious conferences, scientific, academic and practical seminars, round tables on topical legal issues organized at the international and national levels, clarifying to the general public the essence of the reforms being carried out in our country in the judicial and legal sphere.

The Center has established cooperation with international and foreign organizations that have offices in our republic, including the UN Development Program, the regional office of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Central Asia, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the OSCE Project Coordinator in Uzbekistan, the international non-governmental legal organization “Regional Dialogue” (Slovenia), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Legal Reform Program in Uzbekistan, the representative office of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Uzbekistan, the representative offices of the Konrad Adenauer and Friedrich Ebert Foundations in the Republic of Uzbekistan, representative office of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

With the support of international partners, conferences, seminars, trainings and master classes are organized on a regular basis for the teaching staff and trainees of the Center.

In addition, the head of the faculty of the Center, Doctor of Law B. Toshev has become the winner in the competition “The Best Law Promoter”, organized this year by the Ministry of Justice, in the the Public Speaking Academy’s nomination “Putting legal issues in layman’s terms for the general population”.

The trainees of the Center have access to more than 8,000 books available in the Information Resource Center and legal information systems such as Lex.uz, Norma, Yurida.

Cultural events are organized for lecturers and staff of the Center. Scholars, lawyers, employees and well-known figures of our country who previously worked at the Center are also guests of honor at these events.