Welcome Address by the Dean, Prof. Dr. Vladimir Savković, to the First-Year Students of 2025/2026
On September 22, 2025, the Faculty of Law at the University of Montenegro hosted a ceremonial event marking the beginning of the new academic year. On this occasion, the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Prof. Dr. Vladimir Savković, addressed the freshmen with the following words of welcome:
Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues,
First of all, it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to see you all here in such large numbers and to greet you on behalf of the Faculty of Law at the University of Montenegro, an institution that, starting today, you are now an inseparable part of. Here, we educate lawyers, the best in Montenegro.
To become top-tier lawyers and experts in your respective judicial, prosecutorial, legal, notarial, or other professions reserved exclusively for lawyers, to become respected politicians, diplomats, or high-ranking state officials—where you will again encounter many lawyers—first and foremost, you need to be persistent, diligent, and dedicated to personal development in the broadest sense. A top-tier lawyer, I would like you to remember this today, must be an intellectual in the truest sense of the word. Only then, when faced with all areas of life—remember, law regulates every area of life—will you be able to correctly assess the factual and legal circumstances of a complex life situation and apply the relevant legal norms.
And that’s not all. To become a top-tier lawyer, it is not enough to be driven solely by the desire for professional success during your studies and later on in your career. Law, as a science that you will study here, and as a profession you will practice, is inextricably tied to the ideal of justice. I hope you already possess this ideal, given that you are here today, in the temple of Montenegrin law, but it is our duty to instill in you an insatiable thirst for justice in the years to come. In every field and in every personal and professional situation. Please, remember this as well: whenever you are faced with a professional dilemma—and I also recommend in life—follow your sense of justice, and you will not go wrong, neither toward others, nor, perhaps even more importantly, toward yourself and your conscience.
Finally, to succeed both at this faculty and in life in general, you must be prepared for life and professional failures, which you will occasionally encounter. They are a part of life, and paradoxically, they are also an integral part of every life and professional success. A famous American writer once said that every hardship brings a gift with it. Therefore, always view your failures as an opportunity to extract a valuable life lesson from them, a lesson that will make you stronger, better, and more ready for the next challenge on the path toward your goals.
The role of the Faculty of Law at the University of Montenegro is precisely to help you take those first, most important steps along this path, and my advice is to take advantage of our extended hand.
Dear colleagues, every time brings its own challenges. My generation studied and matured in the conditions of preparing the institutional and legal system for the restoration of Montenegros independence after nearly 100 years, as well as in the conditions of its construction in the period immediately after. How successful that task was will be judged by time. However, one thing is undeniable: less than two decades after regaining its independence, Montenegro finds itself at the doorstep of the European Union—the most advanced, most prosperous, and most successful form of interstate cooperation in the long history of European civilization.
This means that our country, and its legal profession, will soon face enormous challenges in becoming a full member of the European Union. So, in a very short span of time in the existence of a state and its people, Montenegro is facing a new historical challenge, but also a unique opportunity in its thousand-year history to raise the quality of life of its citizens to a very high level in a short period.
As I have already mentioned, the role of the Faculty of Law at the University of Montenegro, the only public institution of its kind in Montenegro, will be to prepare you, the new generation of lawyers, for this challenge, so that you can make a key contribution in this regard. Therefore, in the near future, we will work to modernize our curriculum in this direction, as the greatest challenge our country will face as an EU member state will be the proper implementation of European law within our national legal system.
It is up to you, as I said earlier, to accept our extended hand and to work together toward ensuring that this country and society will have generations of lawyers who will not lag behind their colleagues from other EU member states. In other words, generations of lawyers who will repay the citizens of Montenegro—who, do not forget, generously invest in your education—by making sure that both they and you can live in a better and fairer society.
That is why I encourage you from the very beginning of your studies to understand that the Faculty of Law is your opportunity and guide, not just to a profession, but to the building of your personality, to becoming a responsible citizen and a future bearer of the development of our society. Take advantage of this opportunity, work diligently, invest in yourselves and your knowledge, because every page you read here, every exercise you participate in, and every exam you pass is not just a step toward a diploma but an investment in your future and in the future of Montenegro.