The diversity of European bars

I have just come back from a meeting of the Chief Executives of European Bar Associations (CEEBA), which provided a snapshot of lawyers and their lives – north, south, east and west. I am not about to spill the beans on confidential discussions; on the other hand, our work is undertaken for the benefit of Europe’s lawyers, and for that reason deserves some publicity. Not all bars are represented, which I regret, and for a range of reasons, including bar structures and language. Nevertheless, the diversity revealed in the exchanges represents Europe’s own serious challenges.

Beginning with the south, Cyprus is facing dire economic circumstances, as we know. Innocent people and institutions lost money in the bail-in, including a bar fund. Cypriot lawyers are, it seems, emigrating in greater numbers to countries where they face better employment prospects. The IMF part of the Troika treats all, including the bar, with some aggression, focusing on anti-money laundering.

On the other hand, Norway in the north, which used to be one of the poorest countries in Europe and is now among the richest, described its bar activities abroad. It assists in the running of legal aid clinics in Uganda in various parts of the country, including in prisons. Norwegian lawyers love the sense of service that the project gives them in their otherwise domestic legal lives. (The Germans described how they had helped on a national level after the floods earlier this year, setting up a hotline for citizens with legal problems; lawyers were happy to help, knowing in advance that the project would not last indefinitely.)

Moving to the west, Ireland said that their controversial Legal Services Regulation Bill 2011, which caused international consternation two years ago on publication – because it out-Clementi’ed our own Legal Services Act 2007 with its radical proposals – is now on the move through parliament again, but with most of the controversy removed. Wiser heads have prevailed.

Also in the west, England and Wales spoke about a topic never far from the pages of the Gazette: ABSs. Bars from outside the UK still cannot accept the concept of ABSs, particularly after the likely impact of the new insurance company ABSs on lawyers and the legal services market had been described. What about conflict of interests and independence, some bars asked?

The east was not immune to regulatory change. Lithuania said that it had a new law on the bar, which affected the bar’s governance structure and imposed a higher admission criterion on new entrants to the bar: a master’s degree is now required.

The liveliest debate focused on the response that bars should make to the recent Edward Snowden revelations. How to protect professional secrecy? Was there any safe method of communication any more, apart from a return to typewriters (which we heard were making a comeback in some law firms, at least for some sensitive matters)? Could bars recommend any longer that lawyers should store data in the cloud – and was the alternative of one’s own server any safer? There are no answers yet to these questions, and they affected every bar present.

The meeting took place in Berlin. I know foreign travel usually produces sneers of riding the gravy train. But in my entire time there, I had just an hour and a half free. I went for a walk in the area immediately around the hotel, and came by chance to a street exhibition of cultural, scientific and sporting victims of the Nazi terror in Berlin between 1933 and 1939. Tellingly, it was called ‘Diversity Destroyed’, and told a ghastly tale of murder, exile and humiliation. There were internationally known names – Billy Wilder, Berthold Brecht, Fritz Lang, Max Reinhardt, Marlene Dietrich – but I was also pleased to see a few lawyers among them, who had stood up in court in cases against the Nazis, and suffered grievously for it later. I take as an example Hans Litten (1903-1938), who represented numerous victims of Nazi violence, especially workers and communists. In 1931 he interrogated Hitler himself in the course of a trial, unmasking the Nazi leader and exposing the Nazis’ strategies. Litten was arrested in 1933 and tortured by members of an SA unit in whose prosecution he had been previously involved. After a failed suicide attempt in the same year, he hanged himself years later in Dachau concentration camp.

This was a timely reminder as to why it is important so many years later that chief executives of European bars have the structure now to meet, so as to support and strengthen each other’s institutions. Diversity is an important indicator of a healthy Europe.