Government training programme welcomes 110 young lawyers, aims for 250
A total of 110 young lawyers have joined the government’s training programme for new lawyers since the start of the year, with 250 expected to join, according to Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou.
Speaking at a joint press conference with the Pancyprian bar association on Monday, Panayiotou said the programme offers the required postgraduate training for young lawyers who are not in education, employment, or training.
The project is financed by the European Social Fund and the Youth Employment Initiative and has seen 2,335 lawyers admitted to it since September 1, 2017.
Panagiotou said ensuring decent salaries for workers “goes hand in hand with the economy’s development”.
He added that the programme “contributes precisely to this direction by utilising community resources so that the services provided by Cypriot companies, in this particular case by the lawyers of Cyprus, are supported and the remuneration received by their future colleagues is dignified”.
To this end, he pointed out the recent increase in freshly graduated lawyers’ salaries from €650 to €750.
He described the training programme as “successful” and said, “this model needs to be utilised for other sectors of the economy”.
Pancyprian bar association chairman Christos Clerides said the programme has worked “very positively” and that this “is mainly to the credit of Zeta Emilianidou”, the late labour minister who died last year.
Clerides said Emilianidou “was the inspiration behind the whole project”.
“Fortunately, this programme has been extended until 2027, so for the next four years, we will not have to worry about new lawyers”, he added.