On Sunday, September 22, 2024, the Bucharest Bar Association celebrated its 193rd anniversary, marking the occasion with a festive event that featured three main moments: a roundtable discussion on the topic “Current Issues and Perspectives in the Legal Profession. Artificial Intelligence – A Challenge?”, a reception, and the presentation of the “Sarmiza Bilcescu-Alimănișteanu” Excellence Award.
The final moment, the awarding of the “Sarmiza Bilcescu-Alimănișteanu” Excellence Award, which was instituted by the Dean of the Bucharest Bar Association through Decision No. 33/06.03.2024, held special significance for Leroy și Asociații and for our colleague, Attorney and Doctoral Candidate Mihnea-Tudor Orjan (Associate), this year’s laureate.
Through the presentation of this prestigious award by the Dean of the Bucharest Bar Association, Lecturer and Attorney (PhD) Aurel Ciobanu, Mr. Orjan’s constant efforts to uphold the rights, freedoms, and legitimate interests of the legal profession were recognized, a cause that Mr. Orjan has personally taken on as a true mission. Among his merits, witnessed by the entire Leroy și Asociații team, are his efforts to improve procedural norms regulating court costs, the drafting of Amicus Curiae opinions that the Bucharest Bar Association submitted to the Constitutional Court of Romania in various cases concerning the rules affecting the legal profession, and providing the Dean with opinions on the protection of attorney-client privilege in the context of national legislation on preventing and combating money laundering and terrorism financing.
Visibility moved, our colleague stated the following: “I am deeply honored to receive this award, which I see as the culmination not only of specific, quantifiable efforts, but, I hope, of a way of practicing our profession and even living centered around solid principles like dedication, voluntary involvement in community issues, the ability to look beyond personal interest, loyalty to the professional body we are part of, defending its mission, and the courage to use the tools of our profession—knowledge of the law and of social phenomena, logical reasoning, rhetoric, and persuasion—in the most complex situations. I thank everyone for their trust, especially the Dean, the members of the Bucharest Bar Council, all my fellow attorneys, my family, and my professors. It is wonderful to have the chance, throughout your career, to be the lawyer who defends the other lawyers.”
Leroy și Asociații expresses its admiration for Mr. Orjan’s sustained efforts, recognizing in him a trusted colleague, dedicated to his work both professionally and academically, tenacious, and capable of looking deeply and from a multidisciplinary perspective at both the legal situations he handles daily and the social and ethical issues behind each of these cases.
We extend our thanks to the leadership of the Bucharest Bar Association for the opportunity granted to our colleague and we express our full support for the activities of the Bar Association, sending warm regards to all attorneys who are part of it during this celebratory moment.
