Legal services (CPC 861)

Legal basis

• WTO,FTAs, AFAS
• The Law on Lawyers of the National Assembly dated 29 June 2006.
• The Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on lawyers of the National Assembly dated 20 November 2012.
• The Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on intellectual property of the National Assembly dated 19 June 2009.

Investment conditions:

1. WTO, FTAs, AFAS

Foreign lawyers organizations (Foreign lawyers organization is an organization of practicing lawyers including firms, limited liability law firms, corporations established in any commercial corporate form in a foreign country by one or more foreign lawyers or law firms) are permitted to establish commercial presence in Vietnam in the following forms:

• Branches of foreign lawyers organizations;
• Subsidiaries of foreign lawyers organizations;
• Foreign law firms (an organization established in Vietnam by one or more foreign lawyers organization for the purpose of practicing law in Vietnam)
• Partnerships between foreign lawyers organization and Vietnam’s law partnerships.
• Commercial presences of foreign lawyers organization are permitted to make consultations on Vietnamese laws if the consulting lawyers have graduated from a Vietnamese law college and satisfy requirements applied to like Vietnamese law practitioners.

Scope of practice: foreign lawyers organization may provide legal services, excluding:

• Participation in legal proceedings in the capacity of defenders or representatives of their clients before the courts of Vietnam;
• Legal documentation and certification services of the Law of Vietnam

2. The law of Vietnam

Forms of investment

• A branch of a foreign lawyers organization
• A 100%-foreign-capitalized limited liability company
• A joint-venture limited liability law firm
• A law firm in a partnership between a foreign lawyers organization and a Vietnamese law firm partnership.

Scope of practice

• Provide law consultancy and other legal services
• Must not appoint their foreign lawyers and Vietnamese lawyers to participate in proceedings as representatives, advocates, protector of the lawful rights and interests of litigants before Vietnamese courts, or provide services of legal papers and notarization relevant to Vietnam’s law
• Must not provide industrial property representation services and industrial property assessment services.

Foreign investors: have been established and are practicing law overseas.