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CHAPTER 2
BACKGROUND
2.1
The Committee
On 9 August 1986, the Governor appointed a Committee under the chairmanship of the former Chief Justice to consider various matters relating to the practising criteria of lawyers in Hong Kong. also considered the subject of foreign lawyers. reported in January 1988 and their recommendations included the following
(a)
They
that the present administrative arrangements involving the Immigration Department and the Law Society should be replaced by a statutory scheme under the control of the Chief Justice;
and
2.2
(b)
that the Chief Justice should be empowered to licence a firm of foreign lawyers to practise in Hong Kong and admit a foreign lawyer to practise as a partner or in the employment of a licensed foreign law firm.
The Committee also considered the question of the work to be undertaken by a foreign law firm and recommended that foreign lawyers should continue to be prohibited from practising Hong Kong law or employing Hong Kong solicitors. It considered that to permit this would necessarily involve permitting foreign law firms to advise on Hong Kong law and that foreign law firms would be tempted to deal with domestic work which Hong Kong firms
In reaching these were better equipped to handle.
conclusions the Committee noted that, as far as it was aware, no other country permitted a foreign law firm to retain local lawyers to advise on domestic law.
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