Preliminary note

A number of law professions operate in the Czech Republic. The only law professionals entitled to provide legal services in all branches of law are lawyers. All lawyers in the Czech Republic are members of the Czech Bar Association (hereafter the Bar), membership in which is obligatory. At present, nearly 9,500 lawyers actively exercise the legal profession in the Czech Republic. Further, some 3,300 legal assistants registered in the register kept by the Bar practise. Legal assistants are employees of a lawyer or a law firm.

In certain areas, the law entrusts also notaries, court executors, patent representatives and tax advisers with the right to provide legal services, whereas the last two named groups comprise also non-lawyers. A separate group comprises so-called in-house lawyers, who are employees of legal entities the business activity of which does not include provision of legal services. These employees, as jurists, should work exclusively for their employers. Of course, jurists are also active as judges, state prosecutors or jurists of organs and institutions of the state or regional self-governmental units (regions, municipalities). A number of these law professions are also to various extents bound by the duty of professional secrecy.