An Article About Foreign Lawyers
These days economic globalization is one reason why many lawyers are crossing boarders in their practice. It is nothing new for lawyers to travel occasionally to serve existing clients, while others relocate and practice more or less permanently outside of the jurisdictions in which they originally were educated and licensed. Most of the time lawyers relocate because they are associated with the foreign offices of law firms that are based in their home countries, with the international practices of host country law firms, or with corporations, NGOs, or other organizations having international interests that render attractive the intimate knowledge of a foreign legal system characteristic of these lawyers.
Those lawyers who are working outside of their jurisdiction must be aware of the regulatory approach to practice of the host jurisdiction. In any case these lawyers face several possible regulatory approaches. Here, only lawyers who are traveling only occasionally may be permitted to advice in the host jurisdiction so long as they have no permanent presence, such as an office in the host jurisdiction.
This was what the American Bar Association suggested in its recent recommendation for adoption of a temporary practice rule for non-US lawyers. There are still a lot of regulations that lawyers relocating more or less permanently to an office in the host jurisdiction face. There are certain places that permit foreign lawyers to join the bar and practice as local lawyers based upon their home country legal education and license as supplemented by host country education and, in certain jurisdictions, practical training.
Some jurisdictions are not as welcoming as they exclude foreign lawyers entirely unless they re-qualify in the same manner as domestic lawyers. Jurisdictions sometimes allow foreign lawyers to occupy the limited practice status of a legal consultant. With this article you will get an idea on the last of these options, the legal consultant status.
Usually foreign lawyers in the US are faced with jurisdictional and substantive complexities relating to their practice opportunities. As in practice, most jurisdictions in the US will use and apply two sets of relevant rules. One set would determine the rights of foreign lawyers to sit for the state bar examination and be admitted as local lawyers with full practice rights. According to the rules applicants with a degree from a foreign law school and some additional education in an US law school, short of a three year J.D., would satisfy the conditions for taking the bar exam.
More commonly, the rules prohibit applicants from sitting for the examination unless they have graduated from an ABA approved law school with a JD degree. The truth is that jurisdictions vary widely in their policies regarding practice opportunities available to foreign lawyers. Around Twenty eight jurisdictions permit foreign educated lawyers to sit for their bar examinations, either on the basis of their foreign legal education, upon a showing of practical experience, after completing a brief period of US legal education, or a combination of these conditions. Normally in about half of these places, the opportunity to sit for the bar is limited to foreign lawyers whose primary legal education was completed in a common law jurisdiction.
It is important to note that for the second set of rules the focus is on the rights of foreign lawyers to practice in the United States which offers a more limited license than bar admission. In this case, having the legal consultant regime enables foreign lawyers to practice outside of their home jurisdictions on the basis of their home country expertise. Given that, today, there are Twenty-six jurisdictions that have adopted legal consultant licensing regimes. As a whole, the legal consultant rules are the recognition that practice experience and certification in the home jurisdiction qualifies a lawyer to carry on the same activities in the host jurisdiction. The legal consultant concept has been endorsed by the ABA, which recommended its Model Rule on the Licensing of Legal Consultants to all jurisdictions.
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