The Ivory Coast Bar Association has opened proceedings against Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe following the firm’s launch of an affiliated office in the country, with plans to go to court if necessary.
In the wake of Orrick’s launch in the Ivory Coast last month through the opening of affiliated Orrick RCI (20 October 2014), the Bar Association issued a declaration saying the move contravened its rules.
Speaking to The Lawyer last week, association spokesperson and lawyer Chantal Bokola said the bar had taken the case to the minister of justice and was awaiting a response. Bokola added the association had no intention of dropping proceedings, and would go to the courts if need be.
Bokola said the country’s rules meant foreign firms were not able to establish offices in the Ivory Coast, and lawyers admitted to other bars were not allowed to practise in the country. Although the launch was described as an affiliation, Bokola said this still contravened bar rules and was a “veiled” attempt by Orrick to open its own office.
Orrick named Paris-based of counsel Sydney Domoraud-Operi as one of the two lawyers running Orrick RCI and he is admitted to the Paris bar.
The other Orrick RCI lawyer, Karamoko Fadiga, was described in the English press release as a “legal counsel”.
In its French press release Orrick originally described the pair as members of the Abidjan bar, but a later version said they were “legal counsel” (‘conseils juridique’) linked to the national chamber of legal counsel. Fadiga describes himself as a ‘conseil juridique’ in a social media profile online.
The term conseil juridique is applied to legal consultants, but according to Ivoirian law they do not belong to the regulated legal profession of ‘avocats’ – a protected term applying to lawyers who can appear in court.
However Bokola said this definition made no difference to the association’s views on Orrick’s move. She said foreign firms were welcome to instruct Ivoirian lawyers on local matters, working alongside independent firms.
An Orrick spokesperson said in a statement: “We regret the error in the French translation of our press release. The members of the Orrick RCI team are licensed and will continue practising in Cote d’Ivoire as legal counsel. At the same time, we fully support a strong Ivoirian legal profession.”
The bar association’s statement, originally issued on 29 October, accused Orrick of treating the country “as a new ‘legal Far West’. It said the association was “protesting vigorously” against the practice of international firms to establish affiliated offices for the benefit of the parent firm.
It added that any Ivoirians based at home or abroad who met legal requirements were welcome to practice as a lawyer.
No other international firms have a presence of any kind in the country, although local firm Cabinet Bilé-Aka Brizoua-Bi & Associés is a member of Eversheds’ non-exclusive network, the Eversheds Africa Law Institute (1 October 2013).
A number of other African countries have similarly stringent rules preventing the establishment of foreign firms, including Mozambique.
History repeats itself…
This is precisely the technique originally used by American and British firms to open offices in France when the French legal profession was still divided between “conseils juridiques” (authorised to give legal advice but not to appear in court) and “avocats” (authorised both to give legal advice and to appear in court — but in practice, usually focusing on court appearances and litigation in general).
Ultimately, of course, the American and English firms prevailed — when the two professions were unified into the single profession of “avocat”, those firms which had already established offices in France were “grandfathered” and others simply opened correspondent relationships with local firms.