Chile Forum

Curious to know if there is a database that lists all lawyers in Chile authorized to practice? Similar to North America where you can search up other professional designations such as engineers, geoscientists, dentists, etc.

Anyone know?

you would have to get it from the supreme court, and I am not going to allowed it to be posted on this forum.

It also does not really work like that in Chile. The supreme court issues the license to practice after law school and does the swearing in ceremony. The law schools administer the "bar" exam (really kind of like an oral exam, lasting typically a few hours, covering anything in the law), and then there is a mandatory 6 month public service practice. Other than that, oversight is done by the criminal laws pertaining to the legal profession.

There is a local legal license that must be paid to make appearances in court, but it is more like a legal practice tax rather than some sort of certification or accreditation. It is not required to practice law on a daily basis. The only attorneys that really need to worry about paying it are those that are making appearances in court. My wife let her license go for instance when we were out of the country, and then just paid the back fee when we returned when she needed to make her first appearance in court.

You also need to be aware that there are a lot of attorneys practicing law in Chile that have not passed the bar exam or been certified by the supreme court to practice, both good and bad. I know one in fact that failed for more than 6 years in a row (think it was more), was working as a prosecutor the whole time for the government. He finally passed and is now the head of a rather large law department for a major corporation. He was not a bad lawyer, just a bad test taker.

We have had lots of paralegals that my wife recruited out of the law school classes she teaches that had finished law school, even passed the bar exam, but were on a 2 year waiting list to get a slot to complete their mandatory public service practice before they could be certified by the supreme court. There has been a lot of discussion in recent years about changing that requirement or making it more flexible, as it is massive burden on students left in limbo between finishing law school and being full attorneys. They often have student loan debts to pay, and the pay they receive from their job position is dependent on their status as a full attorney.

Yeh, I found there are no Colleges for Professionals or Law Registry for Lawyers in Chile. I am use to looking up an Engineer, Doctor or Lawyer in Canada to see if they were in good standing, it doesn’t happen in Chile. I have even dealt with and paid a Lawyer, who was “in censure” for something he did, it all sounded political sour grapes to me so I continued to use his services as he was hard wired in.