Programme Structure
The programme is based on courses related to three fundamental areas common to all profiles:
- constitutional law and private law;
- history and philosophy;
- professional matters (commercial, administrative, criminal, civil procedure).
Study Plans
To obtain the undergraduate degree, 180 credits (ECTS) must be acquired, an average of 60 ECTS each year. ECTS are acquired by taking the assessment tests for the various courses and other training activities. Each exam is awarded a given number of ECTS, the same for all students, and a grade (expressed out of 30) that varies according to the level of preparation. The final examination is expressed out of 110.
For the third year of the programme, the Faculty suggests four specialization profiles, responding to different cultural and professional vocations:
- Legal Assistant (Judicial Assistant and Paralegal)
- Expert in Legal Sciences for the Public Administration
- Labour and Trade Union Relations Consultant
- Privacy Officer
The programme aims at the training of court clerks, staff working within professional firms and corporate legal departments as well as covering legal functions established in trade associations and representative bodies. Alongside the traditional figure of the judicial assistant, the role of the new generation legal assistant, also called paralegal, is a novelty of increasing importance and frequency in organised professional structures and companies. In a context of increasing professionalisation and specialisation, legal assistants who provide qualified assistance to judges and professionals working in the legal sector - for example lawyers, in-house lawyers, members of boards of statutory auditors and supervisory bodies, secretaries of boards of directors - must possess an adequate level of technical competence, such as to allow them to consciously manage activities potentially likely to produce significant legal effects. The creation of a programme dedicated to the training of legal assistants responds to the growing need for qualified human resources who can carry out tasks involving a basic level of technical-legal competence aimed at, for example, keeping electronic files in civil or administrative proceedings (and in the future, hopefully, in criminal proceedings), filling in the duties of the registry, dealing with the management of company books as well as providing support activities for boards of statutory auditors and supervisory bodies within commercial companies.
The programme aims to provide basic competence in the fundamental areas of law, with particular reference to the public sector, and to ensure an adequate level of preparation to allow the graduate to carry out multiple activities in public institutions and private entities that usually deal with the public administration. At the end of the programme, the student will have acquired a core of legal skills that can respond, in a flexible way, to a plurality of requests and will be able to find employment in public administrations (e.g. Municipalities, Metropolitan Cities, Regions) and in companies, as: legal expert in the field of public contracts; legal expert in urban planning and construction; legal expert in environmental matters; protocol manager; Internal Audit Officer; transparency officer; Corruption Prevention Officer.
This is a well-established profile in the undergraduate degrees in legal services in Italy, also thanks to the professional outlet offered by labour consultancy. The programme aims to offer basic legal knowledge and skills, with a more in-depth study of subjects related to employment relationships, social security and industrial relations. Among the professional outlets, the more traditional ones of the freelance labour consultant and inclusion in company functions related to personnel management (personnel management in the strict sense and Human Resource Management) are worth mentioning. However, the demand for experts in labour law is also growing in the world of employment agencies, trade unions and trade associations, where there is a demand for professionals capable of contributing to the new institutions of the labour market and corporate welfare.
The programme aims to train professionals able to work in the field of privacy. Since 25 May 2018, EU Reg. 2016/679 has applied in Italy and in the countries of the European Union. One of the main innovations of the new regulation is the new professional figure of the Data Protection Officer (D.P.O.), who must be appointed "systematically" by all public authorities (with the exception of Judicial Offices when the processing of personal data is carried out in the exercise of judicial functions) and by private entities when the main activities consist of processing that requires, on a large scale, regular and systematic monitoring of data subjects, data relating to sensitive data or data relating to criminal convictions and offences. The Italian Data Protection Authority estimates the need for these professionals at 30-40,000 units (source: Il Sole 24Ore, 4.2.2017). A figure of privacy consultant (C.P.), who can carry out his or her activity in the field of civil law, civil procedure, criminal law, criminal procedure, and labor law, can also be envisaged. Provacy consultants could be experts in confidentiality, personal identity and data protection, able to offer specific assistance to D.P.O.s, deal with privacy aspects where there is no D.P.O., take care of the out-of-court protection of the rights of natural persons (e.g. before the Guarantor). Moreover, the programme prepares students to deal with the security of IT systems, which does not only concern privacy and which today is assuming an increasingly decisive role.
Credits
To obtain the undergraduate degree, 180 credits (ECTS) must be acquired, an average of 60 ECTS for each year. Credits are acquired by taking the assessment tests for the various courses and other training activities. Each exam is awarded a certain number of credits, the same for all students, and a grade (expressed out of 30) that varies according to the level of preparation. The final examination grade is expressed out of 110.