This volume is the product of an International Symposium organized at the Faculty of Sociology of the University of Urbino «Carlo Bo», Italy, in connection with the celebrations for the Fifth Centenary of the foundation of the Urbino University. The Symposium aimed at discussing theoretical models and empirical evidences of current supply provided by public institutions and/or semi-public and private agencies as regards academic and vocational education about higher legal knowledge and professional legal know-how in a variety of European countries. The essays presented and discussed during the Symposim, and now gathered in this volume, constitute a highly specific contribution to a broader Research Programme devoted to monitor and promote legal education, in so far as they offer materials for a comparative analysis from an interdisciplinary perspective such as that of Sociology of Law. These materials make apparent not only the mixture of either country-specific or supra/trans-national patterns within European higher legal culture and professional legal education systems, but also the need to enlarge and refine the range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the same patterns vis-à -vis the amount of symbolic and material implications of current epochal social and legal changes.

IL CURATORE
Vittorio Olgiati, Associate Professor, Faculty of Sociology, University of Urbino «Carlo Bo», Italy. Qualified private lawyer. Formerly acting as Scientific Adviser, he is Fellow of the Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Basque Country, Spain. He has been Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Socio-legal Studies, Wolfson College, Oxford and EU Erasmus ECTS Course Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Turku, Finland. He is Member of the Teaching Staff of the EU LERU International PhD Doctorate in Sociology of Law «Renato Treves»; of the Governing Board of the Research Committee on Sociology of Law of the International Sociological Association; of the Research Network on Professions of the European Sociological Association; of the Scientific Committee of the Sociology of Law Section of the Italian Sociological Association. Member of the International Jury of the «Onati Prize Essay in Sociology of Law» (2000) and «Onati Podgorecki Prize» (2007), as well as ISA-RCSL Official Representative in a number of international Conference Programme Committees, he acted also as Key-note Speaker and Sessions' Coordinator, Organizer and Chair in a variety of national and international meetings. Currently Member of Editorial Boards and Scientific Advisory Boards of several national and international journals and book series, he is author, co-author and editor of a total of twelve books. He also published various items in socio-legal Encyclopedias and more than one-hundred essays on socio-legal issues, particularly in international journals and volumes.