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Finding a Foreign Family Law Specialist: Accreditation outside England and WalesBy David TruexSFLA Accreditation News Summer 2004The problem
The SFLA Specialist Accreditation Committee considered this problem at a recent meeting and decided to investigate the possibility of establishing a directory of foreign family law specialists. The International Committee is working on a similar project. The Specialist Accreditation Committee directory will concentrate on foreign lawyers who have complied with an accreditation process similar to our own. The International Committee list will be personally recommended by Committee members, based on their experience of working with the nominated foreign lawyers. Although specialist accreditation schemes for family
lawyers are well developed in a few jurisdictions, the law societies
and bar associations in most countries do not offer such a service
to the public. Therefore, if you are looking for a family lawyer
in a non-accreditation jurisdiction, you will be looking for a personal
recommendation. As far as I can ascertain, specialist accreditation of lawyers started in the USA some time in the 1980s. Early schemes were developed in California and Florida. In 1987 Victoria, Australia, became the first Australian state to introduce specialist accreditation. Since then, a national accreditation scheme has been rolled out to cover family lawyers throughout all the Australian states and territories. It is notable that in the USA and in Australia specialist accreditation started with the family lawyers and then spread to other areas of practice. I like to think that this is because family lawyers are so much cleverer and more far sighted than those unfortunate lawyers who get mired in less intellectually stimulating fields of practice. Another curious feature is that specialist accreditation seems to have blossomed first in environments noted for their sunshine and beaches. Perhaps the family lawyer is a species which does its most creative thinking on a surfboard! Australia I start with my homeland because I think the Australian scheme is one of the best. Incidentally, I am also proud of the fact that I helped to launch the Australian scheme when I was Chair of the Family Law Section of the Law Institute of Victoria. We borrowed the main features of the California programme. It has stood the test of time so well that, with only a few modifications, the Australian scheme is fundamentally the same now as it was in 1987. The eligibility criteria are: 1. You must be qualified in legal practice at least
5 years. Readers will realise that our own SFLA scheme is very close to the Australian one. There are other parallels. Australia requires reaccredidation every three years, with specialists having to self-certify that they continue to spend at least 25% of their time on family law and comply with law society continuing education requirements. The accreditation fees are substantial and the assessment process is rigorous, with a substantial proportion of first-time candidates failing to make the required grade. I think it is fair to say that in Australia now all of the top family lawyers, with few exceptions, have obtained specialist accreditation. This is particularly so in Victoria where the scheme has been established for over 15 years. My one criticism of the Australian scheme is that there is, as yet, no national directory of accredited family law specialists, although the Family Law Section of the Law Council of Australia has an excellent website. To find an accredited specialist you need to go to the individual state and territory bodies. However, the national website offers a handy link to these. The links are: Law Council of Australia Family Law Section Law Institute of Victoria Law Society of New South Wales Other state and territory websites are also linked to the national site. USA In the United States there is still no national scheme for accredited specialists in any field of law. The state bar associations have established their own separate schemes and there are significant differences between them. A detailed analysis of all 50 states (plus 4 districts/territories) would take a long time but I have looked at a couple of examples. California and Florida still seem to lead the way (that beach culture again?) with assessment criteria similar to those in England and Australia. Although the American Bar Association website, like its Australian counterpart, does not give direct assess to lists of accredited specialists in each state, the national website provides links to the various state bar associations. My favourite is the Florida Bar Association website because it the only one I have looked at which, when you are searching for a family lawyer, asks whether you want one who is “Board certified in Marital and Family Law” Silly question! Of course we do!! Here are the links: American Bar Association Florida Bar Association State Bar of California Europe With the notable exception of Germany, continental Europe will disappoint any one searching for an accredited family law specialist. Although there are associations of family lawyers in many of the European jurisdictions they do not appear to run accreditation schemes and the membership is broadly based. Just as membership of the SFLA is no guarantee of specialist family law knowledge or experience, membership of the various European family law associations should not, of itself, be relied upon as an indicator of expertise. I could find no family law organisations in the Scandinavian jurisdictions or BeNeLux. Spain and Italy have associations of family lawyers and their websites will provide a useful starting point for your search. Contact details are: Spain: Asociación Espagñola de Abogados
de Familia Italy: Associazione Italiana degli Avvocati per
la Famiglia e per i Minori In Germany an accredited family law specialist holds the title Fachanwalt(in) für Familienrecht. The qualification of Fachanwalt is very difficult to obtain, in fact, I think the German system of accreditation probably sets the highest standards in the world. The lawyer must be qualified for at least 3 years and must have handled at least 120 family law cases, half of which have been to a hearing. The assessment process involves attending at least 120 hours of prescribed courses, followed by exhaustive examination procedures and sometimes interviews. Candidates are obliged to submit list of client files to the local bar association which can inspect the files and must certify the candidate’s work as being of the required standard. German family law specialists with whom I have spoken say they spend months preparing for the assessment process. You can be certain that a German Fachanwalt knows his or her stuff. The best way to find a Fachanwalt in Germany is through the website of the Anwalt-Suchservice at www.anwaltssuche.de. You can specify the geographical area (e.g. Berlin) and also that you require a “Fachanwalt für Familienrecht”. The names thrown up are generally linked to the individual lawyer’s website if one exists. None of the European websites I have looked at provide English translations so it will be helpful to learn some basic foreign family law vocabulary. Perhaps the SFLA International Committee should start work on a Family Law Foreign Language Dictionary! The future It is hoped that this brief summary will be just a beginning. Family lawyers around the world need a credible referral network. Although the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (www.iam.org) list can be useful it is a rather exclusive club and the membership is relatively small (for example, 8 in Germany, 2 each in France and Italy, none in Portugal). I hope the SFLA will take the lead in forging links between family lawyers around the world, promoting the ideals of the Code of Practice and the Family Law Protocol. Such evangelism will bring material rewards if, through this work, we can establish a network for cross-referral of work. Part of the project should be to encourage our foreign colleagues to establish specialist accreditation schemes if they have not already done so. Only through accredited specialisation can we be satisfied that foreign lawyers with whom we entrust our clients’ cases meet objective standards of excellence. Any readers who can assist this work-in-progress by providing helpful information about foreign family lawyers, including family law associations and accreditation schemes, should write to me. David Truex (I would like to thank SFLA Chief Executive Office, Karen Mackay and my IFLC colleagues Stephanie Wells, Kerstin Beyer and Carin Thor for assistance in researching this note) back to News and Media |
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How
do you find a specialist family lawyer in a foreign jurisdiction?
Family law is becoming increasingly international and every practitioner
will, sooner or later, encounter a case where it will be essential
to get advice from a foreign lawyer and, perhaps, instruct that
lawyer to commence or defend proceedings in a foreign jurisdiction.
How can you know that the foreign lawyer you instruct is up to the
job?