Current leadership

The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Syndikusanwälte (AS) is run by a 12-executive committee, together with one member appointed by the German Bar Association. Members of the executive committee are elected for a three-year term at one of the organisation’s annual general assemblies. The current committee chairman is Hans-Peter Benckendorff, a legal director at Deutsche Bank AG.

Membership

As of January 2008, the AS had 491 individual members. Collectively, it is not known how many in-house legal advisors work in Germany. This is because Germany’s mandatory bar associations (collectively known as the German Federal Bar, or BRAK) do not differentiate between private practice and in-house lawyers. In addition, many employees who work for corporate legal departments in Germany are not registered lawyers.

Within AS, the overwhelming majority of its members are in-house lawyers working within companies – although a small number of private practice lawyers have also joined. Only registered lawyers are eligible to join the AS, although the AS is permitted to grant honorary membership in exceptional circumstances. Legal advisors who work for public institutions generally cannot become lawyers in Germany, so are ineligible for membership of the AS.

Status

The AS is a constituent part of the DAV, which is a voluntary, private members’ association. All in-house lawyers’ professional obligations derive from their membership of the mandatory local bar association, rather than their membership of the AS or DAV. Frustratingly for many in-house lawyers, German corporate counsels are only entitled to claim legal privilege when they advise persons who they do not work for. When they offer legal advice to their employer, they do not benefit from legal privilege.

Organisation and objectives

The AS teaches its members about developments in the legal profession, justice and economic justice, and promotes the exchange of views and experience on these areas of law.

Benefits of membership

Each November, the organisation organises a two-day annual meeting in Berlin. The meeting combines technical law updates with seminars on how to manage in-house legal functions. The technical legal events are normally presented by sponsoring law firms, while the management seminars are normally run by senior in-house counsel. Occasionally, the AS will organise additional informal events between its annual meetings, where the topic is of general interest to its members.

Because the AS is a specialist group within the DAV, the AS does not run its own specialist practice group events or produce its own publications. Instead, members of the AS also tend to join specialist groups within the DAV. Each May, the DAV organises its own annual conference in one of Germany’s major cities. The AS actively participates in this conference.

Current hot topics

Although German in-house lawyers regard themselves as equal to their private practice equivalents, the AS wants the German government to formally recognise this situation – especially in relation to legal privilege. “In Germany, there is the belief that in-house lawyers are not independent of their employer, and therefore should not have legal privilege,” said AS chairman Hans-Peter Benckendorff. “We would like the law in Germany to state that there is just one legal profession, and that all lawyers should have the right to legal privilege – like they do in the UK.” However, Mr Benckendorff does not believe this reform will take place until after the next general election in Germany, due to take place in 2009. “The current ‘grand coalition’ government does not have this reform on their agenda,” he says.

Another issue that may soon affect the in-house legal profession in Germany is the 2005 Legal Services Act (Rechtsdienstleistungsgesetz), which is due to come into force in July 2008. The new act will increase the number of business entities that are entitled to offer legal advice, so long as they are “ancillary” to their main business. “For example, Germany banks will be allowed to advise their customers in connection with their role as executors of a customer’s last will and testament,” says Mr Benckendorff.

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