Jonathan Goldsmith’s job has just got significantly more complex. As secretary general at the Council of Bars and Law Societies of the European Union (CCBE), his role is to represent the views of lawyers working across the European Union (EU).
This spring, the number of lawyers the CCBE is charged with representing increased dramatically with the accession of 10 more countries to the EU, boosting its membership to 25. The arrival of a fresh batch of lawyers into the EU – from Latvia to Malta – has come at a time when the legal profession within the EU is coming under an unprecedented level of scrutiny. For Goldsmith, there is a certain irony in this, given the EU’s struggle to win legitimacy within many of its constituent nations.
