Overview

• The Federación Argentina de Colegios de Abogados set the observance in 1958 to coincide with Alberdi’s birthdate.
• Over the past four decades, 161,351 people graduated as lawyers in Argentina, and law remains the field with the most annual graduates despite slower enrollment growth in the last decade.
• Historical context traces advocacy from Greek orators to Rome’s formalization of the profession, through medieval religious strictures to Enlightenment-era emphasis on evidence and codified law.
• Argentina’s 1985 Juicio a las Juntas is highlighted as the first civilian-court prosecution of leaders responsible for state terrorism.
• International touchstones cited include the Nuremberg Trials, the Dreyfus case, the trial of Socrates, and Nelson Mandela’s prosecution, as commentary also stresses lawyers’ central role in defending the rule of law.