This competition does not have a notice yet. EPSO's planner of upcoming selection procedures lists EPSO/AD/433/26, a competition for lawyers at grade AD 7 across four fields — artificial intelligence law, criminal law, procurement law and litigation. Provisional publication is 9 December 2026, with a provisional application deadline of 20 January 2027. EPSO marks both dates with an asterisk and the words “dates to be confirmed”. It is the last competition on EPSO's 2026 planner and the only one of the three law competitions that is not about languages.
What the planner states
| Item | What EPSO publishes |
|---|---|
| Reference | EPSO/AD/433/26 |
| Profile | Lawyers — administrators in four fields |
| Grade | AD 7 |
| Fields | 1. Artificial intelligence law · 2. Criminal law · 3. Procurement law · 4. Litigation |
| Publication | 9 December 2026 (provisional) |
| Application deadline | 20 January 2027 (provisional) |
EPSO's own wording is “Administrators (AD 7) in the following fields: 1. Artificial intelligence law 2. Criminal law 3. Procurement law 4. Litigation”. An artificial-intelligence law field is new for an EPSO competition, and it arrives in the same year as two AD 8 AI competitions on the technical side.
The field you choose is the biggest decision you make
This is the one thing worth understanding before December, and it is measurable rather than speculative. Every recent EPSO competition with more than one field has restricted candidates to one of them. In the AD 8 competition running now, that single choice governs the only test that produces a ranking.
And fields are not comparable in size. When EPSO published the application breakdowns for this year's IT competition, EPSO/AD/429/26, the four fields drew wildly different numbers: 4,436 applications for ICT project management against 548 for clouds and networks, with data science at 1,925 and ICT infrastructure at 1,085. Same competition, same grade, same reserve-list mechanics — and roughly eight times the competition in one field versus another.
Nobody can tell you in advance how four legal fields will divide. But the AD/429 numbers are a warning against assuming the fields are interchangeable, and a reason to read the notice's field descriptions carefully rather than picking the label closest to your job title.
What AD 7 means for a lawyer
On the salary scale in force since 1 July 2025, AD 7 starts at €7,876.27 a month in basic pay, before allowances and before the duty-station correction coefficient. AD 7 is above the AD 5 graduate entry grade, and competitions at this level normally ask for professional experience on top of the law degree — how much, and what counts, is set by the notice. Our grade guide explains what separates AD 5 from AD 7 in pay and in expectations.
What the notice will decide — and this page will not guess
- How many successful candidates are sought, in total and per field.
- Which institutions will recruit from the reserve lists.
- The eligibility scale — the degree required, the years of relevant experience, and what qualifies as relevant in each of the four fields.
- Whether you may apply for more than one field — recent multi-field competitions have said no.
- The tests and pass marks, including whether there is a field-specific test and whether it produces the ranking.
- The language regime.
- Whether the dates hold, and whether a deadline falling on 20 January 2027 survives the year-end.
The reasoning tests are the one thing that does not change
Whatever the notice settles about fields, languages and eligibility, EPSO competitions open with verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning, and they are scored before anything else you wrote is looked at. They are also the only part you can prepare while the notice does not exist.
Start practising → First 25 questions free · no account needed to tryWhat is worth doing before 9 December
Practise the reasoning tests. They are the same verbal, numerical and abstract papers used across EPSO competitions, they are marked first, and they are the only part that exists independently of the notice. Start with verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning, then the test-day guide.
Write down your experience by field, now. With four fields and one choice, the useful preparation is an honest inventory: which matters you worked on, for how long, in what role, and which of the four labels each one genuinely belongs under. Candidates lose eligibility not because the experience was thin but because it was described loosely, or because the dates could not be evidenced.
Assemble your supporting documents now. Diplomas showing the date of the final award decision, employment certificates with exact start and end dates, and proof of your language knowledge. Recent EPSO competitions check eligibility against the documents you upload rather than against what you declared, so an undocumented year is a lost year. Obtaining a document takes weeks; uploading one takes minutes. Our guide to the supporting-documents check explains how that verification actually runs.
The rest of the competition calendar
All of these dates are EPSO's provisional ones, published in its planner of upcoming selection procedures and marked by EPSO itself as dates to be confirmed.
| Competition | Grade | Fields or languages | Published | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data management — EPSO/AST/158/26 | AST 3 | Data analytics · librarianship · archives | 6 October* | 11 November* |
| Lawyer-linguists, Court of Justice — EPSO/AD/431/26 | AD 7 | BG · DE · EL · ES · GA · MT · NL · RO | 21 October* | 25 November* |
| Lawyer-linguists / legal revisers — EPSO/AD/432/26 | AD 7 | ES · FI · GA · IT · LV · MT · PT · SV | 4 November* | 8 December* |
| Lawyers — EPSO/AD/433/26 | AD 7 | AI law · criminal law · procurement law · litigation | 9 December* | 20 January* |
The only competition open for applications right now is EPSO/AD/430/26 in AI and cybersecurity, at grade AD 8, which closes at midday on 13 October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
When does EPSO/AD/433/26 open?
EPSO's planner gives a provisional publication date of 9 December 2026 and a provisional application deadline of 20 January 2027. Both are marked by EPSO as dates to be confirmed. No notice of competition has been published yet.
What are the four fields?
Artificial intelligence law, criminal law, procurement law and litigation, as listed in EPSO's planner. An artificial-intelligence law field is new for an EPSO competition.
Can I apply for more than one field?
The planner does not say, and the notice will. Every recent EPSO competition with multiple fields has restricted candidates to one — in the AD 8 competition running now, that single choice also governs the test that produces the ranking.
Does the choice of field really matter?
On the evidence of this year's IT competition, a great deal. EPSO's published application breakdowns for EPSO/AD/429/26 show 4,436 applications in ICT project management against 548 in clouds and networks — about eight times the competition in one field versus another, for the same grade and the same reserve-list mechanics. Whether the four legal fields divide as unevenly is unknowable in advance, but it is a reason to read the field descriptions closely.
Every date and language list on this page comes from EPSO's planner of upcoming selection procedures as it stood on 8 September 2026. The AD 7 salary is from the scale in force since 1 July 2025, published in the Official Journal as C/2025/6564. The per-field application figures are EPSO's own published application breakdowns for EPSO/AD/429/26, read from the graphs EPSO posted on 1 September 2026. When the notice of competition is published it becomes the only text that binds, and this page will be rewritten from it.