Setting the Standards for Legal and Ethical Koncipientship Training in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to consider justifiable aims of koncipientship and norms that koncipientship should meet. Koncipientship in this article refers to the 3-year training period that prospective lawyers must perform in order to be qualified as full barristers.

We know in vague terms that we want qualified barristers to be well-trained and consumers provided effective and adequate legal services; yet it has not been described clearly or precisely how to evaluate whether the koncipientship (and working conditions of koncipients) reasonably meets such goal. This is why we seek in this article to provide framework and analysis for the norms for a desirable form of post-graduation legal training.

We do this by first analysing the implications arising from the requirement to serve as a koncipient for three years, then we consider the requirement from the point of view of constitutional law, namely the right to choose a profession and engage in independent economic activity. In the third part of this essay we look in detail at what are the claimed legitimate aims of koncipientship and whether (and how) those component-aims can be achieved through koncipientship. We arrive at the conclusion that some of the claimed aims of koncipientship should not be considered legitimate at all while other (legitimate) aims could be served better if certain adjustments were taken. That is why in the final chapter we elaborate on the ways in which koncipientship can be re-evaluated.

Keywords: koncipient, koncipientship, legal training, legal education, restriction to a profession, justifiable aims of professional training, cartel, labour market