The 17th edition of Spring School starts today and runs until Wednesday at the MH Atlântico hotel in Peniche.

This year, the Spring School's motto is The Future is A.I. with a H.E.A.R.T. (Human-centrism, Ethics, Awareness, Resilience, Trust) - and aims to reflect on how Artificial Intelligence can transform the legal field without losing the human experience, empathy and justice that are essential to the practice of law. Lawyers must endeavour to equip themselves with essential technological skills without losing their critical vision and ethics. This balance between automation and humanisation is crucial for the future of law.

As usual, the 100 law students will have the opportunity to develop the behavioural skills most valued by law firms and learn about the main challenges facing the legal sector, through practical workshops and inspiring talks that will help them prepare to join the job market.

This edition of Spring School includes:

  • Spring School Ambassadors: We challenged five VdA lawyers to take part in the Spring School to interact with the students in informal moments and share their experience as former Spring Schoolers who became trainees at VdA, they are: João Avides Moreira, Margarida Rocha Pires, Nuno Brochado de Agarez, Otília Chima and Rickson Neves. Our ambassadors will play an active role at various events, including a workshop simulating recruitment interviews;
  • A collaborative social responsibility initiative between the students, VdA Academia and the Vasco Vieira de Almeida Foundation, through the donation of clothes to the Jórbalan Home - an insertion community that supports mothers and children in situations of social vulnerability;
  • Performance by BandaLhoca on the Spring School stage, followed by a DJ Ride concert;
  • Spring School APP in which students can interact with each other and with the Spring School team via chat, consult the event schedule, the trainers' biographies, the module descriptions, upload photos and videos, among other features.

The VdA speakers at Spring School will be:

João Vieira de Almeida, Benedita Aires, Frederico Gonçalves Pereira, Fernando Resina da Silva, Jorge Bleck, Manuel Protásio, Rodrigo Esteves de Oliveira, Amanda Alves Reis, Muriel Faden da Silva, Sandra Pedro Serrano, Carina Amaro, José Menano, Pedro Lopes de Carvalho, Inês Loureiro, Martim Farinha and Francisco Sampaio Soares.