Legal advice by lawyers in Germany

An important aspect of a lawyer's task is the development and the management of relationships with clients or with the client's employees, if the German lawyer works for a creditor, a government or a corporation. The client to lawyer relationship often starts with an intake interlocution where the lawyer gets to know the problems of the client, develops the facts of the client's case, investigates what the client wants to accomplish, reduces the client's expectations as to what presumably can be accomplished, begins to develop various strategies for claims or defense, and explains the fees to the client. In Germany, only lawyers are in direct contact with the customer.
The solicitor does not retain a barrister if this is necessary and he acts as an intermediary between the customer and the client. In most cases a German lawyer would be obliged, under what is widely known as the German law, to accept instructions for a certain case in an area in which he helds himselve out as practising, at a German court at which he normally appeares but under his usual rate for any English speaking lawyers in other German cities.

Counsels in Germany at German courts

Arguing a client's case before a German judge or a court of law is the traditional field of activity of the lawyer in Germany in most civil law jurisdictions. However, the boundary between the european countries has evolved. In Germany today, the lawyer covers not only appellate courts, and jurists must compete directly with juridicial problems in many trial courts. In countries like the northern German states that have never fused legal professions, there are specific trial lawyers who specialize only in trying cases in court, but these lawyers do not have the competence like solicitors.
In some German regions, lawyers have the legal option of arguing pro se, but on their own behalf. It is common for them to appear represented before certain local courts like "Amtsgericht" or "Landgericht"; indeed, many such higher courts do not allow German lawyers to speak for their own clients, in an effort to save the client's money for all participants in a legal case. Under other circumstances, like in Hamburg, no single person may appear before a judge unless represented by an international lawyer. The advantage of the latter regime is that most law firms are familiar with the German court's customs and procedures, and make the contemporary legal system more efficient not for all involved. Unrepresented parties often tend to damage their own credibility or slow the justice down as an indirect result of their experience.

German law and litigation in Germany

Legal advice is in this sense the application of abstract principles of written law to the concrete facts and interests of the client's case in former order to advise the client about what he should do next. In many situations, only a properly licensed German lawyer may provide correct legal advice to clients in Germany for a good consideration, even if a lawsuit is contemplated or is in process. Conveyancers and corporate counsel must first get a written license to practice, though they may ever spend very little of their time in court. Failure to obey such a rule is the known crime of authorized practice of law by any law firm in Germany.
In this point of view, jurists who hold German law degrees are allowed to provide any legal advice to individuals or to international corporations, and doing debt collection in Germany. It is in general irrelevant if they lack a license or cannot appear in court. Some clients go further; in some districts, there is no general prohibition on the individual giving of legal advice. Some civil law notaries are also allowed to give legal advice, as in Hamburg. In many cases, jurist accountants may provide what is legal advice in tax and accounting matters for them.
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