Fédération des barreaux d’Europe
The admission of the european Lawyers in France
European lawyers who wish to practice in France may do so within the framework of the 1998 Establishment Directive under their original title. Any practise under the French title requires to be sanctioned through an exam which, for most of them, will be mainly based on ethics.
The statistics from the Ministry of Justice show that on 1st January 2009 1,535 foreign lawyers were practicing in France, 785 of them from a European Union member State.
Among these E. U. community lawyers, 149 practice under their original title in compliance with the 98/5 EC Establishment Directive, transposed into articles 83 and following of the 1971 legislation ruling on the practice of the lawyer profession.
This mode of practice is not as popular as its straightforwardness would have led to expect. How can one explain this relative distancing from this way to access the European Union bars, and the French one in particular ?
It would be interesting when assessing this Directive to compare the status in other bars.
Is the registration with a specific list separate from that of the hosting bar Order a deterrent for the lawyer and his/her clientele ? Does the E. U. community lawyer go abroad to practice the law of his country of origin or to become fully integrated into a new legal community ?
Could the submission by E. U. community lawyers to the combined ethics of their original bar and of the hosting bar be the cause of so many problems that many of them prefer straightforward and simple assimilation as offered by Article 99 of the Decree No. 91-1197 dated 27th November 1991 ?
This assumption cannot be ignored. The initial ongoing assessment work carried out indeed exposes complex ethics issues on the structures, administration and capital distribution in lawyers’ practices.
Finally, ethics monitoring of and cooperation between the Bars from the countries of origin and those of the hosting nations remain overwhelmingly at a babbling stage.
The main issue is linked to the independence of the various Bars, which still nowadays find it difficult to accept that the challenge raised by conflicting practices may actually be of help in the day to day exercise of their profession. The expansion of some cross-border bars is however good evidence of this necessity.
For these reasons, 81% of lawyers, i.e. 636 European Union colleagues, did not wait for the 3-year probation delay to request their registration with the bar of their choice.
They practice under the French title of lawyer, having passed the ability test outlined in Article 99 of the Decree dated 27th November 1991.
Demands issued by the E. U. community lawyers
The statutory assignment of the National Bar Council is, under the terms of Article 21-1 of the 1971 law “to determine the list of people likely to benefit from the 2005/36/EC directive dated 7th September 2005 (…), and that of applicants admitted to sit the knowledge assessment exam outlined in the last paragraph of Article 11”.
The Commission for the Admission of foreign Lawyers – one of the most restrained of the National Bar Council – remains however a watching point for the appeal of the French bar. During the year 2009, the Commission for the Admission of foreign Lawyers has scrutinised 82 applications from E. U. community lawyers, in order to allow them to the ability exam outlined in Art. 99.
This is the largest increase since the previous mandate of the National Bar Council.
Decisions made by the NBC between 2006 and 2009 under Art. 99 2009 82 2008 63 2007 61 2006 49
Entrants to Art. 99 and 100 (for lawyers from countries outside the European Union) are increasingly displaying strong and varied career paths.
The number of double Master’s Degrees is rising, whether it involves certificates delivered jointly by another European University or acquired, for instance, from American Universities to which the Superior Education Establishments are linked.
The Article 99 exam also appears as one way for some young French people to join the bar without having to follow the long course of the CAPA. Holders of double Master’s Degrees have their certificates validated in a country that does not require a professional exam to become a lawyer. Some will never practice in that country but, having acquired the title of lawyer, they can sit the Article 99 exam.
For the 2008-2009 period, applicants are mainly from Germany (28), Belgium (21), Spain (82) and the United Kingdom (49).
These lawyers from the EU then register in their majority with the Paris, Nanterre and Lyon bars, and to a lesser extent with those of Strasburg, Nice, Toulouse, Lille and Grasse.
This geographical distribution follows the cross-border economic activity in these regions.
There are more demands from non-E. U. community lawyers
215 applications were submitted to the Commission last year. This figure has also increased, although it is slightly under that of 2008, which was an exceptional year with 238 demands.
The two national exam centres of Paris and Versailles saw 56 applicants sit the ability exam : 24 in Versailles, and 32 in Paris. 75% of the applicants were successful.
It has been noticed that when they are accepted under the terms of Art. 99 or 100, the applicants do not always sit their exam in the same chronological order as the authorisation they received. There again, it can be an effect of personal issues.
A number of applicants already work in practices established in France or foreign structures as employed lawyers, and let this situation, which can be in their favour, last.
Europe attracts lawyers from all over the world, but will their ever be a “European” lawyer ?
Beyond the ongoing work carried out to define the lawyer him-/herself as such, various factors are involved, at least as much as the Establishment Directive. Among these issues are the acknowledgement of degrees, the legislation harmonisation, and the integration of the directives in the national law of the member States. But the lawyer exists more through ethics than through the law.
It is therefore necessary, if not crucial, to set ethics basics for the rise of the “European” lawyer. Proposals have been initiated, and we wish them every success.
Should Europe create this commune set of ethics, the Article 99 exam will become obsolete with regards to its ethics and professional regulations part. It will only remain fully implementable for lawyers whose legislation may be far away form Continental Law.
Marie-Christine WIENHOFER Chairman of the Commission for the Admission of foreign Lawyers National Bars Council