Comment: Some thoughts on the organization of legal Practice in Ethiopia
| Author | Tameru Wondim Agegnehu |
| Position | Tameru Wondim Agegnehu: LL.B, (Haile Selassie I University, currently Addis Ababa University, 1972), LL.M (University of Manchester, 1981), former Vice President of the Supreme Court, and currently Attorney & Consultant at Law, Email: tameruw@yahoo.com |
| Pages | 229-238 |
229
Some Thoughts on the Organization of legal
Practice in Ethiopia
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/mlr.v11i1.8
Tameru Wondim Agegnehu
Abstract
The art of arguing cases evolved in Ethiopia as elsewhere as a personal skill and
to this day, legal service in Ethiopia is a sole practice that has not been able to
organize itself into a law firm1. Lawyers have not been able to take advantage of
partnership models under the Ethiopian Commercial Code of 1960 as in other
countries, either because of concocted legal mysticism or because of the laxity of
legal service in the country that did not call for robust or specialized and
organized law firms. The history of law firms in other countries indicates that the
evolution proceeded through the General Partnership to Limited Partnership (LP)
and finally culminating on the Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) which started
in the USA and spread out to the rest of the world in the 1990s. It is now time to
think in terms of organizing law firms in Ethiopia, and the Committee entrusted
with a duty to revamp the Commercial Code of Ethiopia must see to it that the
section on Business Organizations included the LLP to accommodate
professional business associations including the legal practice. 2
Key terms
Legal practice, limited liability partnership, non-commercial professional
partnership, Commercial Code, Ethiopia
______________
1. Background: Lawyering in Ethiopia, 1940s Onward
As elsewhere lawyering started as a personal skill fit for sole practice and
continued as such in Ethiopia long after the basis for its legal recognition was
Tameru Wondim Agegnehu: LL.B, (Haile Selassie I University, currently Addis Ababa
University, 1972), LL.M (University of Manchester, 1981), former Vice President of the
Supreme Court, and currently Attorney & Consultant at Law, Email: tameruw@yahoo.com
1 Tameru Wondm Agegnehu: ‘Evolution of legal practice in Ethiopia (Amh.)’, ELA 50th
Anniversary Gold Jubilee Journal, June, 2015, pp.3-8.
2 I obtained a copy of the draft on Sep t. 20/16 for the first time, and noticed that the LLP is
included in the new draft with some characteristics of an ordinary partnership, which is
left out in the draft.
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