The Legal Profession in the European Union

Aim of this work is to provide a guidance to lawyers and other professionals to the current contents of EC law related to the legal professions and to the different national systems in order to simplify the use of the relevant EC rules on professional practice in a different member state and to accomplish a precise knowledge of the influence's framework of 'Europe'; in the national regulated legal professions. This work makes a survey on the evolution of EC law focusing on legal profession and their relationships with the market freedoms and competition rules. It starts from the Treaty provisions on free movement of services and freedom of establishment to further analyse the directive created to regulate the provision of services by lawyers (77/249), the diploma recognition system (89/48 and the new directive 2005/36) and the establishment directive (98/5) on the right to practise in another Member State on a permanent basis, using the professional title gained in the home Member State and the possible integration in the host State.