Free Movement of Lawyers between the European Union and the United Kingdom

Abstract

Activities of legal professionals in the European Union are regulated by Directive 77/249/EEC of 22 March 1977 and Directive 98/5/EC of 16 February 1998, implementing Articles 26, 49 and 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. After Brexit, these Directives are no longer in force in the U.K. and the trade in legal services and cross-border establishment of lawyers have required different international rules to be laid down by the European Union and the United Kingdom. In this perspective, access to the European internal market and British national market is now governed by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, signed on 30 January 2020 and entered into force, provisionally, on 1 January 2021 and, fully and definitively, on 1 May 2021, setting out a new legal framework in the matter between the Parties. This paper seeks to highlight how the working life of legal professionals, and, particularly, of individual lawyers, has changed as a result of Brexit, drawing attention to several disadvantages that stem from the international regulation incorporated in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.