STEP from the beginning
1993
by Pierangelo Graziani, Italy
Opportunities to travel, spend time in a foreign country, have a first work experience, learn about other countries and legal systems while yielding personal connections and experiences that will last for life. No wonder STEP has always attracted great interest from both students and externals. Being involved in STEP is always challenging and exciting and the period between the end of the 80’s and the second half of the 90’s was particularly so, certainly in terms of results. ELSA began exchanging its first 3 traineeships in 1984 and between 1986 and 1988 with VP STEP Johan Åkermarck and Ingeborg Kainlauri it consolidated in a full running programme with well defined forms, procedures, policies and guidelines. During my several terms as VP STEP I was fortunate enough to be part of an enthusiastic expansion of the Programme from roughly 40 traineeships and 150 applicants to approximately 300 traineeships and over 1000 applicants. To accomplish even one single sucSTEP grew from 3 traincessful traineeship one needs the combined and coordinated efforts eeships in 1984 to 500 of many officers at all levels of traineeships and 2500 ELSA in different countries. Local applicants in 1996/97. Groups finding traineeships and providing reception, Local Groups finding qualified applicants, National Groups coordinating, and of course ELSA International collecting all data, making the matching, coordinating, monitoring, training…. and much more. If only one element of the chain fails, everyone’s efforts are helplessly lost. This in turn creates a very strong and special feeling of community amongst all STEP officers. The great numbers of traineeships and applicants were the result of the hard work and enthusiasm of over 100 STEP Officers throughout Europe. Every year new Local Groups joined ELSA and new STEP officers were trained. Cooperation with the International Law Students Association (ILSA) brought many traineeships in the USA and Asia. I remember Rome and London offering 8 traineeships, Munich and Frankfurt over 10, but it was the Austrian Local Groups who were the true “super-stars”: Graz 18, Vienna 21! Over time procedures changed, but basically the major task of the VP STEP was to match the requirements of the employers to the qualifications of the applicants. And this task got more and more complex as numbers grew. Together with my Team, Tommaso Graziani and Ritva Saario, we introduced the first computer programme to assist the manual matching. It was based on the DBASE 3+ programme and ran on a 286 processor. continued on page 10
ELSA in 1993 • Pilot issue of ELSA’s Guide to Legal Studies in Europe (GLSE) is published • First International STEP Meeting takes place in Groningen (The Netherlands) • A permanent office is rented in Brussels New members: • Czech Republic • Slovakia • Turkey • Romania First contact to: • Latvia • Lithuania
The World in 1993 • 25/05: The tribunal to prosecute violation of international law in Yugoslavia is established. • 01/11: The Maastricht treaty takes effect • 20/12: The United Nations General Assembly votes unanimously to appoint a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
9