The Gazette 1992

GAZETTE

JUNE

1992

Association), Doctor Gunter Shardey, described the structure of the legal profession in Germany and the problems and challenges that had been posed by unification. Before unification, said Doctor Shardey, there were only 600 lawyers in East Germany, Now in Germany as a whole there were about 65,000 practising lawyers of which approximately 3,500 were established in the former East Germany. The number of lawyers from West Germany who were establishing in the new East German States was increasing all the time, he said. While former GDR lawyers had dealt mainly with family and criminal law, commercial law was now the crucial area. The Deutscher Anwalt Verein had assisted its new colleagues from the former GDR by providing training including opportunities for those lawyers to undergo practical periods of work experience in West German law firms in order to help them to adapt to the new legal system. Doctor Shardey said that unification had created a greater demand than ever for lawyers in Germany and, of course, there were opportunities for Irish lawyers to get into business in Germany. Doctor Ingo Kober, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Justice, said that, despite the considerable differences that had existed at the time of unification, the legal profession had consistently come out in favour of mutual integration and the means to achieve this had been set out in the Unification TVeaty. "The basic arrangement takes the line that all lawyers should retain their admission to the profession, should enjoy the same rights and obligations, and be permitted also to be active professionally in the territory of what used to be the 'other' Germany." Opportunities for Foreign Lawyers

Frank Murphy, Gleeson McGrath Baldwin and former President of the Law Society, Moya Quintan, at the reception before the Conference Dinner and Dance.

Doctor Kober then turned towards the opportunities for foreign lawyers. "Upon creation of German unity, the entire territority of the Federal Republic of Germany became a member of the European Community. For lawyers from the EC Members States that means that the freedom of movement under Community law applies now to the whole of Germany. "German law itself is also, I feel, generous in the options it affords European lawyers wishing to set up in business in Germany. Lawyers from other EC Member States have the right to become members of the Lawyers Professional Association so that they - as their German colleagues - are subject only to supervision from their own profession. They work under the professional title applicable in their home country and are restricted to giving legal advice and providing legal representation based on their own domestic law, European Community law and other international law. They are free to co-operate professionally with German lawyers or with colleagues of the same status from other States."

Sutherland SC and the Irish Ambassador to Germany, His Excellency Padraic Murphy.

Summaries of their presentations will be published in a future issue of the Gazette. Commenting on the Conference, Adrian Bourke, President of the Law Society, said: "The presence in Berlin of Irish lawyers from North and South, barristers and solicitors, was very much appreciated by German legal bodies, and by the German Government. The quality of the speakers, and the depth of their content, on the eve of European union, was a source of constant comment, and was a signal to a major European partner of our interest in those areas, and of our anxiety to be seen to take a real role in the work of the Community and in the business which is to be done durihg and after the coming into effect of the Maastricht TVeaty. It would be my personal hope that there is a directional force indicated by the success of this Conference, which should be followed by the Law Society from time to time. I express deep appreciation to the speakers, to the Organising Committee and to the fantastic participants from the

Bar and from the solicitors profession, who made it all possible."

The Conference was also addressed by former EC Commissioner, Peter

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