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 The
legal profession in South Africa is divided into advocates (barristers)
and attorneys (solicitors). No dual practice is permitted.
The advocates' profession in South Africa is
a referral profession. This means that a client approaches an attorney
who, in turn, instructs an advocate.
The requirements for admission as an advocate
in terms of the Admission of Advocates Act, 74 of 1964, are:
Subject to the provisions of any other law,
any division shall admit to practice and authorize to be enrolled
as an advocate any person who upon application made by him/her satisfies
the court:
a. that he/she is over the age of twenty-one
years and is a fit and proper person to be so admitted and authorized;
b. that he/she is duly qualified;
c. that he/she is a South African citizen
or that he/she has been lawfully admitted to the Republic for
permanent residence therein and is ordinarily resident in the
Republic;
d. in the case of any person who has at any
time been admitted to practice as an attorney in any court in
the Republic or elsewhere, that his/her name has been removed
from the roll of attorneys on his/her own application.
The GCB is a federal body representing the organized
advocates' profession in South Africa, and has ten constituent societies
of practising advocates called Bars. There is a Bar at the seat
of every provincial and local division of the High Court of South
Africa.
The requirements for membership of a Bar are
a Bachelor of Laws degree, completion of a 5 month period of pupillage,
followed by a bar examination consisting of a written and oral examination
in the following subjects:- Legal Writing, Motion Court Practice
and Procedure, Ethics, Criminal Procedure and Evidence, Preparation
for and the Conduct of Civil Trials.
Membership of a Bar is limited to advocates
in private practice. Members of the Bar are obliged to occupy chambers
and are bound by the rules of ethics of individual Bars.
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