I am delighted to announce that after much deliberation our adjudicators have awarded the inaugural John Kerr Memorial Fund Award to Josef Peer from Fellner Wraztfeld.
The competition was fierce, with lawyers from all over Europe competing. The judges paid tribute to the quality of all the candidates and they really were enormously impressed by each and every one. They found it particularly uplifting to engage with Josef who so evidently shared John’s values and enthusiasm for the AEL. They could not over-emphasise to me how difficult it was to reach a final decision and they discussed it at very considerable length.
We shall be conducting an interview with Josef shortly and will publish it to the website once complete.
As his prize Josef has now been invited to attend our AGM in Madrid in 2021 as our guest and will also receive a cash prize. He will also attend our virtual AGM this year.
At each AGM we shall open up the next year competition and would invite all of you to nominate a candidate(s) from your firm who you think fulfils the criteria (as attached) of the award set by John Kerr’s wife Adrienne. I really do hope this will be the start of an exciting initiative to get more junior members of all our firms and the wider membership, involved with AEL.
If you have any queries in the meantime please do not hesitate to contact me.
Jeff Gillbanks
Secretary General