Federal Act
on the Free Movement of Lawyers
(Lawyers Act, FMLA)

This Act guar­an­tees free move­ment for law­yers and set outs the prin­ciples for prac­tising as a law­yer in Switzer­land.

¹ This Act ap­plies to per­sons who hold a law­yer’s prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate and who rep­res­ent parties be­fore ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies in Switzer­land in terms of the law­yers’ mono­poly.

² It sets out the mod­al­it­ies by which parties may be rep­res­en­ted be­fore ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies by law­yers who:

a.

are cit­izens of mem­ber states of the European Uni­on (EU) or of the European Free Trade As­so­ci­ation (EFTA);

b.

are cit­izens of the United King­dom of Great Bri­tain and North­ern Ire­land who are covered by Part Four of the Agree­ment of 25 Feb­ru­ary 2019⁴ between the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion and the United King­dom of Great Bri­tain and North­ern Ire­land on Cit­izens’ Rights fol­low­ing the With­draw­al of the United King­dom from the European Uni­on and the Free Move­ment of Per­sons Agree­ment.⁵

³ These mod­al­it­ies also ap­ply to Swiss cit­izens who are en­titled to prac­tise the pro­fes­sion of a law­yer in a mem­ber state of the EU or of EFTA⁶ un­der any of the pro­fes­sion­al titles lis­ted in the An­nex.

⁴ The pro­vi­sions on law­yers from EU or EFTA mem­ber states also ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to law­yers from the United King­dom in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 let­ter b.⁷

¹ Un­der this Act, the can­tons shall re­tain their right to lay down the re­quire­ments for be­ing gran­ted a law­yer’s prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate.

² The fore­go­ing also ap­plies to the right of the can­tons to per­mit hold­ers of their own can­ton­al law­yer’s prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate to rep­res­ent parties be­fore their own ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies.

Law­yers re­gistered on a can­ton­al law­yers’ roll may rep­res­ent parties be­fore ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies in Switzer­land without fur­ther au­thor­isa­tion.

¹ Each can­ton shall keep a roll of law­yers who have a place of busi­ness with­in the can­ton and who meet the re­quire­ments of Art­icles 7 and 8.

² The roll shall con­tain the fol­low­ing per­son­al data:

a.

sur­name, fore­name(s), date of birth and place of ori­gin or na­tion­al­ity of the law­yer con­cerned;

b.

a copy of the prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate;

c.

the cer­ti­fic­ates that con­firm that the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 8 have been sat­is­fied;

d.

the place of busi­nesses and, if ap­plic­able, the name of the law firm;

e.

dis­cip­lin­ary meas­ures that are not yet spent.

³ The roll shall be kept by the can­ton­al su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity for law­yers.

¹ Law­yers who hold a can­ton­al law­yer’s prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate and who wish to rep­res­ent parties be­fore ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies shall ap­ply to be entered on the roll for the can­ton in which they have their place of busi­ness.

² The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall enter the law­yers on the roll when it has es­tab­lished that the re­quire­ments of Art­icles 7 and 8 have been sat­is­fied.

³ It shall pub­lish the re­gis­tra­tion in an of­fi­cial can­ton­al or­gan of pub­li­city.

⁴ The law­yers’ as­so­ci­ation of the can­ton con­cerned also has the right to ob­ject to a law­yer’s entry on the roll.

¹ To be entered on the roll, the law­yer must hold a law­yer’s prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate. Such a cer­ti­fic­ate may be is­sued by the can­tons only if the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments are sat­is­fied:

a.

suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of a leg­al course of stud­ies with a li­cen­ti­ate or mas­ter’s de­gree from a Swiss uni­versity or an equi­val­ent high­er edu­ca­tion de­gree from a state that has an agree­ment with Switzer­land on mu­tu­al re­cog­ni­tion;

b.

suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of at least one year of prac­tic­al train­ing in Switzer­land with an ex­am­in­a­tion on know­ledge of leg­al the­ory and prac­tice.

² Can­tons in which Itali­an is an of­fi­cial lan­guage may re­cog­nise a for­eign de­gree equi­val­ent to a li­cen­ti­ate or a mas­ter’s that has been ob­tained in the Itali­an lan­guage.

³ The com­ple­tion of leg­al stud­ies with a bach­el­or’s de­gree shall sat­is­fy the re­quire­ments for ad­mis­sion to prac­tic­al train­ing.

¹ To be entered on the roll, the law­yer must sat­is­fy the fol­low­ing per­son­al re­quire­ments:

a.

they must have the ca­pa­city to act;

b.⁹

they must not have any crim­in­al con­vic­tion for of­fences in­com­pat­ible with the pro­fes­sion of be­ing a law­yer, un­less this con­vic­tion no longer ap­pears on a stand­ard private ex­tract in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 41 of the Crim­in­al Re­cords Re­gister Act of 17 June 2016¹⁰;

c.

they must not have any un­paid debt cer­ti­fic­ates is­sued against them;

d.

they must be able to prac­tise as a law­yer in­de­pend­ently; they may be an em­ploy­ee only of per­sons who are also entered on a can­ton­al roll.

² Law­yers em­ployed by re­cog­nised char­it­able or­gan­isa­tions may be entered on the roll provided they sat­is­fy the re­quire­ments of para­graph 1 let­ters a–c and they strictly lim­it their activ­it­ies of cli­ent rep­res­ent­a­tion to man­dates that fall un­der the ob­jects pur­sued by the or­gan­isa­tion con­cerned.

Law­yers who no longer sat­is­fy any one of the re­quire­ments for entry on the roll shall be re­moved from the roll.

¹ The fol­low­ing bod­ies and per­sons may in­spect the roll:

a.

the fed­er­al and can­ton­al court and ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies be­fore which the law­yers ap­pear;

b.

the court and ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies of the EU or EFTA mem­ber states, be­fore which the law­yers entered on the roll ap­pear;

c.

the can­ton­al su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies for law­yers;

d.

the law­yers them­selves in re­la­tion to their own entries.

² Any per­son is en­titled to in­form­a­tion on wheth­er a law­yer is entered on the roll and wheth­er a law­yer is sub­ject to a dis­qual­i­fic­a­tion from prac­tising.

The data from the roll that is re­quired to as­sign and use the Busi­ness Iden­ti­fic­a­tion Num­ber in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 18 June 2010¹² on the Busi­ness Iden­ti­fic­a­tion Num­ber shall be re­por­ted to the Swiss Fed­er­al Stat­ist­ic­al Of­fice.

¹ Law­yers shall use the pro­fes­sion­al title as­signed to them with their law­yer’s prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate, or an equi­val­ent pro­fes­sion­al title of the can­ton on whose roll they are entered.

² In busi­ness com­mu­nic­a­tions, they shall in­dic­ate that they are entered on a can­ton­al roll.

The fol­low­ing pro­fes­sion­al rules ap­ply to law­yers:

a.

They shall prac­tise their pro­fes­sion di­li­gently and con­scien­tiously.

b.

They shall prac­tise their pro­fes­sion in­de­pend­ently, in their own name and on their own re­spons­ib­il­ity.

c.

They shall avoid any con­flict between the in­terests of their cli­ents and per­sons with whom they have a busi­ness or per­son­al re­la­tion­ship.

d.

They may ad­vert­ise their ser­vices, provided the ad­vert­ising re­mains ob­ject­ive and meets a pub­lic need for in­form­a­tion.

e.

They shall not enter in­to any agree­ment with their cli­ent be­fore the con­clu­sion of a leg­al dis­pute on shar­ing in the pro­ceeds from the pro­ceed­ings as a sub­sti­tute for their fee; fur­ther­more, they shall not un­der­take to waive their fee in the event of an un­fa­vour­able out­come to the pro­ceed­ings.

f.¹³

They must ob­tain pro­fes­sion­al in­dem­nity in­sur­ance com­men­sur­ate with the nature and ex­tent of the risks re­lated to their work; the sum in­sured must amount to at least one mil­lion francs per an­num; in­stead of in­dem­nity in­sur­ance, oth­er equi­val­ent se­cur­ity may be provided.

g.

They are re­quired in the can­ton on whose roll they are entered to carry out of­fi­cial pub­lic de­fence work and provide leg­al rep­res­ent­a­tion un­der the leg­al aid sys­tem.

h.

They shall keep the as­sets en­trus­ted to them sep­ar­ate from their own as­sets.

i.

They shall on tak­ing on a case ex­plain their billing prin­ciples to their cli­ent and in­form their cli­ent peri­od­ic­ally or on re­quest about the amount of the fee due.

j.

They shall no­ti­fy the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity of any changes to the data re­lat­ing to them on the roll.

¹ Law­yers shall be bound by pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity that is un­lim­ited in time and ap­plies to deal­ings with any per­son in re­la­tion to any­thing en­trus­ted to them by their cli­ents in the course of their pro­fes­sion­al activ­it­ies. Re­lease from this ob­lig­a­tion does not re­quire the law­yers to dis­close any­thing en­trus­ted to them.

² They shall en­sure that their aux­il­i­ary staff pre­serve pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity.

Each can­ton shall des­ig­nate an au­thor­ity to su­per­vise the law­yers that rep­res­ent parties be­fore court au­thor­it­ies on its ter­rit­ory.

¹ The can­ton­al court and ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies shall im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity for their can­ton of any fail­ure to meet the per­son­al re­quire­ments un­der Art­icle 8 and of in­cid­ents that could breach the pro­fes­sion­al rules.

² The fed­er­al court and ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies shall im­me­di­ately no­ti­fy the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity of the can­ton in which a law­yer is entered on the roll of any fail­ure to meet the per­son­al re­quire­ments un­der Art­icle 8 and of in­cid­ents that could breach the pro­fes­sion­al rules.

¹ If a su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity opens dis­cip­lin­ary pro­ceed­ings against a law­yer who is not entered on the roll of the can­ton con­cerned, it shall no­ti­fy the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity for the can­ton on whose roll the law­yer is entered.

² If it in­tends to or­der a dis­cip­lin­ary meas­ure, it shall grant the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity in the can­ton on whose roll the law­yer is entered the op­por­tun­ity to state its opin­ion on the res­ult of the in­vest­ig­a­tion.

³ The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity in the can­ton on whose roll the law­yer is entered shall be no­ti­fied of the res­ult of the dis­cip­lin­ary pro­ceed­ings.

¹ In the event of a breach of this Act, the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity may or­der the fol­low­ing dis­cip­lin­ary meas­ures:

a.

an of­fi­cial warn­ing;

b.

a rep­rim­and;

c.

a fine not ex­ceed­ing 20,000 francs;

d.

a sus­pen­sion from prac­tising for a peri­od not ex­ceed­ing two years;

e.

a per­man­ent dis­qual­i­fic­a­tion from prac­tising.

² A fine may be im­posed in ad­di­tion to a dis­qual­i­fic­a­tion from prac­tising.

³ If ne­ces­sary, the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity may im­pose a dis­qual­i­fic­a­tion from prac­tising as a pre­cau­tion­ary meas­ure.

¹ A dis­qual­i­fic­a­tion from prac­tising ap­plies throughout Switzer­land.

² No­tice of the dis­qual­i­fic­a­tion shall be giv­en to the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies in the oth­er can­tons.

¹ The right to bring dis­cip­lin­ary pro­ceed­ings is sub­ject to a stat­ute of lim­it­a­tions of one year from the time that the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity learned of the in­cid­ent in ques­tion.

² This peri­od shall be in­ter­rup­ted by any in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ure taken by the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity.

³ The right to bring dis­cip­lin­ary pro­ceed­ings is sub­ject in every case to a stat­ute of lim­it­a­tions of ten years from the time that the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity learned of the in­cid­ent in ques­tion.

⁴ If the breach of the pro­fes­sion­al rules con­sti­tutes a crim­in­al of­fence, the longer lim­it­a­tion peri­od provided for un­der the crim­in­al law ap­plies.

¹ Warn­ings, rep­rim­ands and fines shall be re­moved from the roll five years after they are ordered.

² A sus­pen­sion from prac­tising shall be re­moved from the roll ten years after it ceases to ap­ply.

¹ Cit­izens of EU or EFTA mem­ber states who are en­titled to prac­tise as a law­yer in their coun­try of ori­gin un­der any of the pro­fes­sion­al titles lis­ted in the An­nex may rep­res­ent parties be­fore ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies in Switzer­land in ac­cord­ance with their free­dom to provide ser­vices.

² The law­yers provid­ing the ser­vices shall not be entered in the can­ton­al law­yers’ roll.

The fed­er­al and can­ton­al ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies be­fore which the law­yers provid­ing the ser­vices ap­pear as well as the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies for law­yers may re­quire that the law­yers prove their qual­i­fic­a­tion to prac­tise.

Where there is a man­dat­ory re­quire­ment to be rep­res­en­ted by a law­yer in pro­ceed­ings, the law­yers provid­ing the ser­vices are ob­liged to act in con­sulta­tion with a law­yer who is entered on a can­ton­al law­yers’ roll.

The law­yers provid­ing the ser­vices shall use their ori­gin­al pro­fes­sion­al title in the of­fi­cial lan­guage of their state of ori­gin and provide de­tails of the pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tion to whose jur­is­dic­tion they are sub­ject or the court be­fore which they are ad­mit­ted un­der the reg­u­la­tions of the state con­cerned.

The law­yers provid­ing the ser­vices are sub­ject to the pro­fes­sion­al rules set out in Art­icle 12 with the ex­cep­tion of the pro­vi­sions on of­fi­cial pub­lic de­fence work and leg­al aid work (let. g) and entry on the roll (let. j).

The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall no­ti­fy the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity in the state of ori­gin of any dis­cip­lin­ary meas­ures that they or­der against law­yers provid­ing ser­vices.

¹ Cit­izens of EU or EFTA mem­ber states who are en­titled to prac­tise as a law­yer in their coun­try of ori­gin un­der any of the pro­fes­sion­al titles lis­ted in the An­nex may rep­res­ent parties be­fore ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies in Switzer­land on a reg­u­lar basis provided they are re­gistered with a can­ton­al su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity for law­yers.

² Art­icles 23–25 also ap­ply to these law­yers.

¹ The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall keep a pub­lic list of cit­izens from EU or EFTA mem­ber states who may reg­u­larly rep­res­ent parties be­fore ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies in Switzer­land un­der their ori­gin­al pro­fes­sion­al title.

² The law­yers shall re­gister them­selves with the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity of the can­ton in which they have a busi­ness ad­dress. They shall prove that they are qual­i­fied to prac­tise by pro­du­cing a cer­ti­fic­ate con­firm­ing their re­gis­tra­tion with the re­spons­ible body in their coun­try of ori­gin; this cer­ti­fic­ate must have been is­sued with­in the pre­vi­ous three months.

³ The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall no­ti­fy the rel­ev­ant of­fice of the state of ori­gin of their re­gis­tra­tion in the list.

¹ Be­fore the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity brings dis­cip­lin­ary pro­ceed­ings against cit­izens of EU or EFTA mem­ber states that reg­u­larly rep­res­ent parties be­fore ju­di­cial au­thor­it­ies in Switzer­land, it shall no­ti­fy the rel­ev­ant body in the state of ori­gin.

² The su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall work with the re­spons­ible body in the state of ori­gin dur­ing the dis­cip­lin­ary pro­ceed­ings and shall in par­tic­u­lar give it the op­por­tun­ity to state its opin­ion there­on.

¹ Cit­izens of EU or EFTA mem­ber states may be entered on a can­ton­al law­yers’ roll without sat­is­fy­ing the re­quire­ments un­der Art­icle 7 let­ter b provided they:

a.

have passed a qual­i­fy­ing ex­am­in­a­tion (Art. 31); or

b.

have been entered for at least three years on the list of law­yers prac­tising un­der their ori­gin­al pro­fes­sion­al title and prove that they:

1.

have prac­tised dur­ing this peri­od ef­fect­ively and reg­u­larly in the field of Swiss law, or

2.

have prac­tised in the field of Swiss law for a short­er peri­od and have proven their pro­fes­sion­al skills in an in­ter­view (Art. 32).

² They shall thereby have the same rights and ob­lig­a­tions as law­yers who hold a can­ton­al law­yer’s prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate and are entered on a can­ton­al law­yers’ roll.

¹ Cit­izens of EU or EFTA mem­ber states shall be ad­mit­ted to the qual­i­fy­ing ex­am­in­a­tion if:

a.

they have suc­cess­fully com­pleted at least three years of stud­ies at a uni­versity and if ap­plic­able the re­quired pro­fes­sion­al train­ing in ad­di­tion to such stud­ies; and

b.

they hold a de­gree that en­titles them to prac­tise as a law­yer in an EU or EFTA mem­ber state.

² The law­yers must sit the qual­i­fy­ing ex­am­in­a­tion be­fore the law­yers’ ex­am­in­a­tion board of the can­ton on whose roll they wish to be entered.

³ The qual­i­fy­ing ex­am­in­a­tion shall cov­er the spe­cial­ist fields that are the sub­ject of the can­ton­al law­yers’ ex­am­in­a­tion and which dif­fer sub­stan­tially from those which have already been ex­amined in the course of their train­ing in their state of ori­gin. Its con­tent is also de­term­ined by the pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence of the law­yers con­cerned.

⁴ The qual­i­fy­ing ex­am­in­a­tion may be resat twice.

¹ The in­ter­view to veri­fy pro­fes­sion­al skills shall be con­duc­ted by the law­yers’ ex­am­in­a­tion board of the can­ton on whose roll the law­yer wishes to be entered.

² It shall is based in par­tic­u­lar on the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments provided by the law­yer about the work that they have done in Switzer­land.

³ It shall take ac­count of the know­ledge and the pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­i­ence of law­yer con­cerned in the field of Swiss law, as well as courses and sem­inars at­ten­ded on Swiss law.

In ad­di­tion to the pro­fes­sion­al title of the can­ton on whose roll they are entered, law­yers may also use their ori­gin­al pro­fes­sion­al title.

¹ The can­tons shall reg­u­late the pro­ced­ure.

² They shall provide for a simple and quick pro­ced­ure for veri­fy­ing that the re­quire­ments are sat­is­fied for entry on the can­ton­al law­yers’ roll.

...¹⁵

Per­sons who hold a law­yer’s prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate un­der the cur­rent can­ton­al law shall be entered on the can­ton­al law­yers’ roll, provided they would have been gran­ted a pro­fes­sion­al prac­tising cer­ti­fic­ate in the oth­er can­tons un­der Art­icle 196 num­ber 5 of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion.

¹ This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the com­mence­ment date. Art­icle 2 para­graphs 2 and 3 and Art­icle 10 para­graph 1 let­ter b as well as Sec­tions 4, 5 and 6 shall only come in­to force if the Agree­ment of 21 June 1999¹⁶ between the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion of the one part and the European Uni­on and its mem­ber states of the oth­er on the Free Move­ment of Per­sons comes in­to force.

³ For cit­izens of mem­ber states of EFTA, Art­icle 2 para­graphs 2 and 3 and Art­icle 10 para­graph 1 let­ter b as well as the Sec­tions 4, 5 and 6 only come in­to force if the Fed­er­al Act of 14 Decem­ber 2001¹⁷ in re­la­tion to the Pro­vi­sions on the Free Move­ment of Per­sons in the Agree­ment of 21 June 2001 on the Amend­ment of the Con­ven­tion of 4 Janu­ary 1960 es­tab­lish­ing the European Free Trade As­so­ci­ation (EFTA) comes in force.¹⁸

Com­mence­ment date: 1 June 2002