FORMS OF GOOD GOVERNANCE APPROPRIATE IN THE ROLES AND DUTIES OF ATTORNEYS

Abstract

This research on the forms of good governance appropriate for the roles and duties of attorneys aims to (1) investigate the problems on roles and duties, professional competency, and asking for permission to open the attorneys’ legal consulting firms;  (2) investigate concepts, principles, and theories related to roles and duties, competency, and asking for permission to open the attorneys’ legal consulting firms; (3) investigate good governance and laws related to roles and duties, competency, and asking for permission to open international, foreign, and Thailand legal consulting firms; (4) investigate and analyze the problems on adopting good governance to roles and duties of attorneys, attorneys’ professional competency, and asking for permission to open the legal consulting firms; and (5) investigate the forms of good governance appropriate for the roles and duties of attorneys, competency, and asking for permission to open the legal consulting firms by the qualitative research methodology including documentary research and in-depth interview. 

          The findings revealed that (1) regarding the problems on training in the law firms, several law firms open up to the trainees to work as an apprentice but some law firms agree to get approval for the trainees who do not obtain an apprenticeship, leading the trainees to lack body of knowledge for working as an attorney professional; (2) regarding the problems on attorneys’ competency, laws to control attorney profession do not specify the competency leading currently one lawyer can conduct all the cases as hired by the clients and resulting in their incompetency; (3) regarding the problems on the standards of the legal consulting firms, laws do not restrict or prohibit establishing partnerships and companies in the form of lawyer practice, law consulting or making a case, as a result, establishing partnerships and companies to conduct any businesses related to laws is inefficient to control the standards of the legal consulting firms although that person is not an attorney and does not have an attorney license. 

          Therefore, this research would like to propose the forms of good governance appropriate for the roles and duties of attorneys, that is, the Lawyer Act (No. …) B.E. … which consists of the contents on good governance appropriate for the roles and duties of attorneys, professional competency of attorneys, and asking for permission to open the legal consulting firms.