Legal Ethics in Finland: Two Codes of Conduct for a Two Class Legal Practice System

• Author: Stefan Kirchner
• Position: Is Associate Professor for Fundamental and Human Rights, with Special Focus on Indigenous Rights, at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland
• Pages: 992-1010

e Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law

ISSN: 2338-7602; E-ISSN: 2338-770X

http://www.ijil.org

© 2014 e Institute for Migrant Rights Press

992

is research was made possible by a grant (No. MIP-020/2012) from the Research

Council of Lithuania. is text only reects the author’s private opinion.

LEGAL ETHICS IN FINLAND

TWO CODES OF CONDUCT FOR A TWO CLASS LEGAL PRACTICE SYSTEM

STEFAN KIRCHNER

University of Lapland, Faculty of Law, Rovaniemi, Finland

E-mail: stefan.kirchner@ulapland.fi

Understanding the regulation of attorney behavior in Finland is of relevance

to attorneys who come into contact with Finnish companies and their attorneys.

Finland’s legal and political history make it potentially interesting for lawmakers

in the Baltic states as well. Finland has two types of lawyers, lakimiehet (singular:

lakimies), who consult clients, and asianajajat (singular: asianajaja), who both

consult clients and represent them in court. Access to the former profession is easier

and requires only a master’s degree in law while in order to become an asianajaja,

a lakimies has to have several years of work experience and pass an ethics test. For

each set of lawyers exists a separate code of conduct. While the rules applicable to

lakimiehet t on a single page, the conduct of asianajajat is regulated in far more

detail. is article describes the expectations Finnish law has towards the conduct of

both types of lawyers against the backdrop of the specic legal system of the Nordic

nation. Both the Code of Conduct for asianajajat and the Code of Conduct for

lakimiehet are dealt with in relation to the rules contained therein. Next, the article

deals with the way legal ethics are taught. Here emphasis is given to the importance

of practical experiences to be provided for students and the need to not only learn but

to live ethics and the role practicing attorneys can play in this regard.

Keywords: Legal Ethics, Legal Education, Lawyering, Access to Justice, Legal Profession,

Access to Justice.

Stefan Kirchner

Legal Ethics in Finland: Two Codes of Conduct for a Two Class Legal Practice System

993

I. INTRODUCTION

Ethical behavior on the part of attorneys is an important aspect of the

exercise of the legal profession. In many legal systems, laws prescribe

minimum standards of behavior for attorneys. Today the legal profession

is currently undergoing fundamental changes. Law rms are more and

more run like businesses. is erodes the sense of obligation an attorney

as a professional has towards his or her client. While lawyers have to make

a prot to survive, this increasing similarity between the legal profession

and businesses which goes beyond the use of corporate structures by law

rms and pertains to the general attitude in many law rms is a double

edged sword. On one hand should attorneys be no worse of than others in

terms of corporate law, on the other hand does the focus on legal services

as a business lead to a risk that key characteristics of the legal profession

are lost.

e courts are not innocent in this regard. For example did the

European Court of Human Rights in Mor v. France1 consider an attorney’s

freedom of speech (which includes advertisements) to be more important

than the duty to condentiality.2 While dogmatically sound from the

perspective of the European Convention on Human Rights,3 under

which the material scope of the freedom of expression is very wide,4 the

consequences for the trust in the legal profession are potentially serious.

Yet, here is also an obvious role for legal ethics in the narrow sense of the

term: while the law allows such advertisements, legal ethics suggests that

the client’s name is never published without the client’s consent.5 Here a

comparison to the medical perspective is particularly illustrative: From a

1. Mor v. France, App. No. 28198/09, 2011 Judgment of 15 December 2011,

available at http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-108026

(last visited Aug. 28, 2014).

2. Id. para. 57.

3. European Treaty Series no. 5, .echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_

ENG.pdf> (last accessed 28 August 2014).

4. C G, E C  H R:

C 254 (1st ed. 2014) (“Every statement is an information or idea

according to Article 10 (1)” ECHR and thus falls within the material scope of

Article 10 ECHR).

5. For a German view on advertisements by attorneys see Michael Quaas,

Verschwiegenheitspicht und anwaltliche Selbstdarstellung, in B M

258, 261 (2013).