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If I was to do a qualifying Law degree in the uk can I use this to work in Austria as a lawyer?
Do you mean a Scots law or English law degree? One generally gives you better access to foreign law jurisdictions than the other.
Do you mean can you qualify in England/Scotland and then go and practise in Austria? Or do you mean you'd just study the LLB and then go to Austria and sit their professional exams? What does the Austrian Bar say about foreign qualified lawyers?
In short, technically yes, but most likely no.
Most of my work is in jurisdictions other than my qualified jurisdiction (Scots law LLB, English qualifying law degree, English qualified), but I'm not able to hold myself out as a lawyer of those jurisdictions. But it doesn't really matter since we'll always have local counsel working with us anyway.
But, if you're thinking of simply qualifying in England/Scotland and then going to work for a Austrian firm as a fee earner, I'd reckon your chances are pretty slim as an NQ. They'll have a whole host of good Austrian qualified graduates fighting over jobs, why would they want someone who they'd have to pay a lawyers salary but couldn't recover a qualified fee earner's rate? In general, if an Austrian firm needed an English qualified lawyer, they'd instruct one.
It is possible though, I do it daily, but it means working as an English qualified lawyer for a while in an area with cross border significance and similar systems in those other jurisdictions. Then you can move about pretty freely, being picked up to do the 90% that's the same across both jurisdictions and using local counsel for the other 10%.
Call yourself a lawyer? You've answered the questions without charging a fee!
Nah he hasn't posted the time yet - bill will be in the post 🙂
I'm in the process of no longer working as a lawyer, so I can't really help.
there are reciprocal admissions rules in place within the EU but at a fundamental level: why would anyone hire you to advise on Austrian law when you've never studied it? why would anyone hire you to advise on English law in Austria when you've never practised it?