The competition in the legal industry is challenging, and therefore the Competition Council is planning a number of changes in the industry.
It shows an analysis from the Competition Council, which was published Thursday morning.
The analysis comes with 16 recommendations. This applies, among other things, to increased competition for the state’s purchase of legal aid.
The Competition Council recommends, among other things, that all or parts of the state’s tasks, which today fall under the agreement on the Chamber Advocate, be exposed to competition.
– For 85 years, the state has bought a significant part of its legal assistance from the Chamber Advocate. The agreement with the Chamber Advocate is without expiration and is not covered by the tender obligation.
– Many municipalities and regions can also to a greater extent expose their procurement of legal advice to competition, says chairman of the Competition Council Christian Schultz.
The Council writes that the tasks that according to the Public Procurement Act are not subject to a mandatory tender may be combined in one agreement, which constitutes a new, smaller “Chamber Advocate Agreement” with an expiration date.
The new, smaller and time-limited Chamber Advocate Agreement can either be renegotiated with the law firm Poul Schmith, or offered in competition as a single contract.
– It can also be considered whether with such a new model there can be more law firms that can use the title of Chamber Advocate, or whether such a title is relevant when there are several suppliers, it sounds from the council.
The Danish Chamber of Commerce believes that the agreement with the Chamber Advocate must be terminated. The organization proposes to establish framework agreements in various areas in which several qualified law firms participate.
The Council also recommends a partial abolition of a ban on lawyers engaging in so-called “client fishing”. However, the prohibition shall not apply to criminal proceedings or cases involving particularly vulnerable or vulnerable persons.
– Legal assistance is often based on trust, and clients are generally very loyal to the law firm they have used in the past. It limits the competition that the customer side is relatively passive in its market search, says chairman Christian Schultz.
There is also a study of whether candidates other than those who have a cand.jur. – a master’s degree in law – must be able to be admitted to the law school.
Source: The Nordic Page