SRA, Bar Council and Law Society express concern over Brexit implications for UK legal profession

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), Bar Council and Law Society have submitted their responses to an inquiry into the impact of Brexit on the UK justice system led by MPs.

All three organisations’ responses to Parliament’s Justice Committee highlight the need to maintain the UK legal profession’s leading status as a world centre for commercial legal services such as dispute resolution. As Lexology reports, there is concern among the legal profession’s leading organisations that this priority has been forgotten amid the wider constitutional debates surrounding the United Kingdom’s impending negotiations to exit the European Union. A key fear is that UK lawyers may lose the right to represent clients in EU courts, which currently only permit rights of audience to lawyers of member states, while firms and lawyers are also worried about Brexit’s implications for their rights to establish offices and advise clients based in other EU member states.

Finally, there is concern that judgments handed down by UK courts may no longer be recognised in the European Union after Brexit, which would discourage overseas businesses from naming England and Wales as the jurisdiction for commercial contracts out of fear that such contracts would not be enforceable in EU countries.