PRACTICE: fears that mandatory requirement could discourage small firms and be tokenistic

Plans to lay down minimum rules that would allow lawyers to establish offices in any country were pushed ahead last week, despite a row over whether foreign practitioners should be required to transfer skills to local professions.


The rules, first mooted at last year's conference in Prague, would permit foreign lawyers to practise their home country law and require them to register with the host bar association. Countries could provide greater freedom if they wanted, such as to practise international, third country, or even domestic law.


If ultimately adopted by all law societies and bar associations around the world through the International Bar Association (IBA) - and thereafter by their governments - the rules would remove many of the problems City law firms face in breaking into key markets.


An update session at the IBA's annual conference in Chicago heard strongly differing views as to whether skills transfer should be a mandatory part of the package, with representatives of the law societies of South Africa and Slovakia among those to call for it to be a pre-condition.


'Foreign lawyers must be prepared to do a visible skills transfer,' said Doris Ndlovu, co-chairperson of the Law Society of South Africa. It would amount to nothing otherwise, others insisted.


However, Christian Wisskirchen, international relations manager at the Bar Council of England and Wales, argued that mandatory skills transfer 'could end up as tokenism' and discourage small firms from expanding abroad. He said the only meaningful skills transfer comes through allowing foreign lawyers to employ and go into partnership with local lawyers, a step many countries are reluctant to take.


At a meeting held after the conference session, the committee agreed that as part of the package allowing foreign lawyers in, law societies would be able to insist on skills transfer if they wanted. However, US lawyer Ben Greer, chairman of the committee, earlier stressed to delegates that whether it would be mandatory or voluntary would be a matter for the bilateral talks between the relevant countries establishing access.


It is hoped that the resolution will be put to the IBA council at its meeting in Zagreb next spring.


Neil Rose