The Law Society has claimed victory in its campaign to win global practice rights for UK lawyers after the European Union (EU) put legal services at the top of the agenda for the latest round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) professional services talks.

It emerged last month that the EU has placed legal services top of the list of issues to discuss in the latest round of talks under the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), ahead of other industries such as accountancy and engineering.

Pressing compliance with GATS, which covers international standards on professional and financial services, holds the prospect of WTO members in restrictive jurisdictions being forced to open up their legal market to international law firms.

The latest talks will begin in June when interested parties formally finalise their GATS agenda.
The key demand put forward by the Law Society of England and Wales to the EU is that local Chinese lawyers should be able to give local advice within foreign firms.

Although China formally took up WTO membership in December, its own blueprint for liberalisation, published by the Ministry of Justice on 1 January, looks set to formalise the ban on international firms offering Chinese law advice.

At present local Chinese lawyers must give up their practising certificates if they join a foreign firm.
Other jurisdictions targeted for their restrictive practice rights are South Korea and India.

Law Society international directorate head Alison Hook told Legal Week: "Legal services in the last round was an afterthought.

"I am not sure why, but legal services are now number one and it feels like we are pushing on an open door."

Hook stressed that although countries like China may not immediately agree to WTO demands from the EU, just getting them to recognise the issues would be significant.

She warned that some Western countries were making GATS talks more difficult by not liberalising their own rules.

For example, the US has yet to respond to calls to ease restrictions on international lawyers' re-qualifying as US lawyers and the Scottish Law Society still bans multi-national partnerships. Meanwhile, France has still not implemented the EU Rights of Establishment Directive which is supposed to create a level playing field for EU lawyers.