Trade in Legal Services, Country by Country
The Economist reports on the globalization of legal services, with a number of countries highlighted:
China, Brazil, Hong Kong:
In China and Brazil foreign firms have flourished by offering advice on international law, but they cannot provide legal representation in local courts. (An exception is Hong Kong, which has recently seen a spurt in foreign lawyers taking the local bar exam.)Canada:
Another big Commonwealth country, Canada, is less restrictive than India—but not as open as England or Australia either. It is fairly rare for lawyers to move between Canadian provinces, and a switch from Quebec to an English-speaking province involves a change of legal tradition as well as language. Meanwhile, foreign lawyers who want to practise Canadian law face two evaluations—one at federal level, the other provincial—and most fail.India:
But there is one determined outlier among fast-growing Asian economies: India, the only big country that is closed to foreign lawyers in any capacity. A powerful lobby—ranging from hundreds of thousands of small (often husband-and-wife) practices to a handful of leading partnerships—resists change. Foreigners who tried venturing into the Indian market are still reeling from a decision in December by the Bombay High Court which deemed illegal the “liaison offices” that some outsiders had opened. The Indian government said (rather half-heartedly) that it would appeal against this ruling. But the climate in which law-related work could be undertaken by outsiders has gone from difficult to prohibitive.Korea:
South Korea has promised to open up its legal market to outsiders under a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union that should be ratified later this year.Singapore:
Singapore became more foreign-friendly; certain firms from other countries can practise domestic law in some areas, as long as the lawyers they use have local qualifications.Japan:
Japan opened up its legal-services market in 1999, despite great nervousness from its own lawyers. Since 2005, foreign firms have been able to set up partnerships employing Japanese lawyers, who (in contrast with Singapore) need not give up their national licence.Venezuela:
And even in countries where trust has been established, the climate can change, as Baker & McKenzie is finding in the anti-American atmosphere that now rages in Venezuela, where it has worked since the 1950s. The situation there is “really testing our mettle, and I call our Caracas partners heroes,” Mr Conroy says.