Faculty of Law

We have a significant impact on the city of Pilsen and the Pilsen Region. It enhances prestige by preparing professionals who are employable in professional legal chambers or in public administration.

How do we influence the city and the region?

We train professionals in professional legal chambers or in public administration.
Thanks to our graduates we raise the prestige of the city and the region.
We are building a dignified and sophisticated environment.
We educate in close contact with practice.
We bring new insights from the field of law and legal science.

Where are we heading?

We maintain a high standard of education in law and legal science.
We develop dynamically and respond flexibly to developments in society.
We have attractive study programmes and offer students specialisation projects beyond the normal teaching.
We develop regional and international cooperation with various institutions.
We are an integral part of the city and the region and contribute to the sustainable development of society.

Graduates of FL UWB in Pilsen and the region

For 30 years, we have been training lawyers and clerks for more than just our region. You must have met them in offices, courts, law offices, prosecutors’ offices, notaries, police and fire brigades…

During its existence, the Faculty has educated 8346 graduates in 4 study programmes.

There were 6356 graduates of the Master’s degree programme in Law and Legal Science, 1680 graduates of the Bachelor’s degree programme in Legal Specialisation, and 204 graduates of the follow-up Master’s degree programme in Public Administration. Another 106 graduated from the doctoral programme. 253 persons successfully completed the rigorous procedure.

The Faculty of Law educates and trains professionals who are equipped with the competences required for the 21st century. They have a wide application in the labour market.

The faculty offers 5 specialisation projects beyond the standard studies.

Karel Šimka

History, present and important people

The Faculty of Law was established in 1993 with the enthusiasm of a number of lawyers and with the support of the then university administration, the city of Pilsen and other institutions such as the Regional Court in Pilsen or the Institute of State and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
In March 1993, the Academic Senate of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen approved a proposal to establish the Faculty of Law of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen.
This decision was confirmed on 5 May 1993 by the Accreditation Commission of the Government of the Czech Republic. Vladimír Balaš was entrusted with the management of the faculty. The Institute of State and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and partly the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague contributed to the provision of professional teaching.
Teaching at the Faculty of Law began in the academic year 1993/1994 in the form of a five-year full-time Master’s degree programme in Law and Legal Studies.
In the academic year 1995/1996, teaching was expanded to include three-year bachelor’s degree programmes in public administration and humanities.
Since 1999, it has been possible to study in the Bachelor’s degree programme Legal Specialisation in the field of Public Administration and in the Master’s degree programme Law and Legal Sciences in the field of Law. Subsequently, the faculty was also granted accreditation for the doctoral programme and for the rigorosis procedure.
Teaching at the Faculty of Law at the beginning of its establishment was provided by 10 departments, the Institute of Social and Political Sciences and the Institute of Philosophy. Currently, 11 departments provide teaching at the Faculty of Law.
Among the prominent persons working at the faculty we should mention in particular: prof. JUDr. PhDr. Karolína Adamová, DSc.; prof. JUDr. Stanislav Balík, CSc.; JUDr. PhDr. Stanislav Balík, Ph.D.; prof. JUDr. Antonín Ignác Hrdina, DrSc., O. Praem; JUDr. PhDr. Zdenek Masopust, DrSc.; prof. Ing. JUDr. Mgr. Alexander Bělohlávek, PhD., M.A., Dr.h.c., prof. JUDr. Marta Knappová, DrSc.; prof. JUDr. PhDr. Dr. h.c.Viktor Knappa, DrSc.; prof. JUDr. Přemysl Raban, Csc.; doc. JUDr. Jan Pauly, CSc.; doc. JUDr. Jarmila Pavláta, CSc.; prof. JUDr. Martin Kopecký, CSc.; prof. JUDr. Vladimír Kopal, DrSc.; prof. JUDr. Václav Pavlíček, CSc., Dr. h. c.; prof. JUDr. Jan Musil, CSc.; JUDr. Josef Baxa, CSc.

Faculty educators in the legal world

During its 30 years of existence, 270 people, including 27 professors and 43 associate professors, have been involved in the teaching process at the faculty.
In addition to teaching, academic staff speak at professional conferences, public lectures, TV and radio discussions, publish in Czech and foreign professional journals, are authors or co-authors of textbooks, teaching aids and professional monographs.
These are experts who are known for their excellent erudition, among other things they sit on the advisory bodies of the Government of the Czech Republic, are judges, lawyers, arbitrators, executors. The Scientific Council of the Faculty of Law is composed of distinguished authorities, such as constitutional judges, judges of the Supreme Administrative Court, deans of Czech and foreign faculties, important representatives of the legal profession and other legal capacities.
In addition to their teaching activities at the faculty, a number of employees work in various legal professions.
This ensures maximum interconnection between theory and practice in teaching, which is reflected not only in the teaching of some specialised subjects, such as Legal Practice, Simulated Trial, Judicial Practice or Clinical Legal Practice.
Academics are members of the Legislative Council of the Government of the Czech Republic, working committees and other expert groups. A number of faculty members have participated or are participating in the drafting of new legislation.
Academic staff of the faculty continue to hold positions in important boards that have an impact on educational policy, evaluation of research and research projects, serve on scientific boards of other, especially law faculties in the Czech Republic, as well as on editorial boards of professional journals and professional associations.

Did you know that…

Some of the faculty’s employees are also attorneys, judges of various levels of courts, including the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, public prosecutors, bailiffs, insolvency administrators or employees of other state bodies or public authorities?

The faculty has a significant impact on the city of Pilsen and the Pilsen Region. It enhances prestige through the training of professionals who are employable in professional legal chambers or in public administration. It is perceived as an integral part of the region.

We are building a dignified and cultured environment. We educate future lawyers in close contact with practice. We bring new knowledge in the field of law.

It is no coincidence that the Faculty of Law was in the competition organized by the Czech Student Union in 2015 was awarded 1st place as the best faculty of the year in the field of Law.

The Faculty publishes

Právnické listy magazine (in cooperation with Wolters Kluwer ČR since 2017).
Proceedings Acta historico-iuridica Pilsnensia.
Proceedings of the Hope of Legal Science.
Proceedings of the Metamorphosis of Law in Central Europe.

The non-periodical publication of the Acta historico-iuridica Pilsnensia was launched in 2006, when the Acta was the output of a meeting of the staff of the departments of legal history from the Czech and Slovak Republics. In the following years, more than ten volumes of the proceedings have been published.
The Proceedings of the Hope of Legal Science is published as a collection of contributions from individual years of the conference of the same name organized by the Faculty in order to present the professional works of young researchers, assistants and doctoral students dealing with various branches of law.

The collection Metamorphoses of Law in Central Europe captures a wide range of opinions from the field of legal theory, legal history, individual fields of positive law and law teaching.

Cooperation and associations

The Faculty of Law cooperates with the Regional Court in Plzeň, the District Court in Plzeň-město and the National Monuments Institute, especially with the Loket Territorial Department.
The Faculty cooperates with the Pilsen Region and the City of Pilsen and other subjects of self-government and public administration. Deeper cooperation with the law faculties in Prague and Brno has developed.
The faculty cooperates with the Arbitration Court at the Czech Chamber of Commerce and the Agrarian Chamber of the Czech Republic, the Security Information Service, the Czech Red Cross, the General Inspectorate of Security Forces, specialized departments of the Police of the Czech Republic, the Fire and Rescue Service of the Czech Republic, the Royal Canon of the Premonstratensians at Strahov, the Union of Advocates of the Czech Republic, z. s. and ATLAS consulting spol. s. r. o, and last but not least with professional chambers, in particular the Czech Bar Association, the Notary Chamber of the Czech Republic, the Chamber of Executors of the Czech Republic and the Chamber of Tax Advisors of the Czech Republic.
Various societies were or are active at the faculty or cooperated with the faculty. In the past, these included, for example, the Friends of the Faculty of Law of UWB, Juristi, o.s. and others. At present, two student societies, Ius Infinitum and Elsa, the Pilsen branch of The European Law Students’ Association, operate at the Faculty of Law.They concentrate a significant part of the Faculty’s students and contribute to spreading a positive image of the Faculty in the eyes of the public.
In 2022, faculty representatives actively participated in the first renewed scientific Congress of Czech Lawyers, where the deans of law faculties agreed to cooperate with the Union of Czech Lawyers and all other legal professions, starting with the CBA, corporate lawyers, prosecutors, and judges. In the same year, the Association of Law Faculties was established with the participation of the Faculty of Law, which in 2023 joined the Memorandum of Cooperation with the Union of Czech Lawyers and professional unions and associations.
The Faculty of Law also cooperates with the private sphere, especially with the companies epravo.cz, a.s., and Consulting Company Novasoft, a. s. In the area of contract research, cooperation with a number of other entities from both the public and private spheres has been implemented, for example with the Notary Chamber in Pilsen, the City of České Budějovice and the Union of Czech Lawyers.