Access to the Legal Profession in Spain

In January 2006 a bill has been submitted to the Spanish Parliament concerning access to the legal profession.

At present when students obtain their Law degree they automatically become legal practitioners. Any Law-degree holder (the course is completed over a five-year period), may be admitted to the Bar Association as from the next day he finishes he studies and from that very moment he may act as legal counsel in any matter regardless of its nature, complexity or amount.

Traditionally Spanish lawyers have insisted that Law graduates should be subject to a period of articles and training before they may practise law. All Bar Association Conferences (mainly the ones held in León (1970), Majorca (1989), Coruña (1995), Seville (1999) and finally Salamanca (2003)) have highlighted the need of providing supplementary practical training to the theoretical syllabus offered by law faculties in order to ensure that the protection of rights and freedoms entrusted to lawyers is sufficiently