Bangkok Lawyer Information.
As a foreigner who is not familiar with the customs, traditions, norms, and lifestyle in Bangkok area, it is better for you to know Bangkok lawyer information to guide or advise you with all activity matters that you are intending to do such as doing business, investment, prepare contract, dealing with supplier, apply visa, help you in family problem and a lot all things that has an impact to your life and business.
Bangkok is the capital city of Thailand which is composed of a combination of various of expats who are mostly here for a short period of time as tourist and those expats who are here for a long period of time, most of them stay here for business, work, retirement, live with Thai family etc.
There are several districts (city) in Bangkok on which you can find more information via this link; Learn more about Bangkok.
While life goes on during your stay in Bangkok, you should also make sure that you comply with the Thai law and regulation such as Immigration law, labor law, business law, criminal law, civil law, property law etc. (and also the curfew law during Covid-19)
Or if you already have legal issues and looking for someone to assist you.
That why you should have some Bangkok lawyer in your watch list to standby and assist you if something happens to you.
So, we are creating this content to allow you to know information about how to find a good lawyer in Bangkok and how they can exactly help you.
Services we always providingIf you need to know what legal service we always served to foreign client, you can see from our main page here.
1. General information about Bangkok lawyer.
In order to become a Bangkok lawyer (and also in other provinces), they must finish high school and study at Faculty of Law in the University for 4 years in order to get a Bachelor’s Degree.
Then they need to study at the Lawyers Council Under the Royal Patronage for 1 year.
During their study at the Lawyers Council, they need to train at a law office for 6 months.
They also need to pass three exams as follows: theoretical section, practical section and interview section.
Then they will become a lawyer by getting the Attorney-at-Law license.
You can look at photo below
Our system is unlike other country that they need to finish Bachelor Degree first and study more at a Law School.
Some of lawyers in Bangkok also continue studying at Thai Barrister in order to get deeper knowledge and open more opportunities for them to become a judge and a prosecutor.
The lawyers who have passed the examination from Thai Barrister can be recognized because they have good knowledge about the law. Because it is very hard to study and pass the examination from the Thai Barrister.
Most of the lecturer and teacher are judges from the Supreme Court and a Prosecutor. That why the person who pass the examination from Thai Bar will have a clear legal perspective in several matters.
2. Bangkok Lawyer’s scope of work.
Most of the work that the Bangkok lawyer work with is a combination of several areas because Bangkok is the business capital of the kingdom which is virtually and physically huge as well as it is home to a number of expats living and working in Thailand.
Here is an example of a popular work that a lawyer in Bangkok handles:
Setting Business Entity: As Bangkok is the center of business in Thailand and it is also considered as the number one in terms of the easiest country to set up a company or starting a business. You can refer to read here: The Easiest place for start business for 2020.
Bangkok also has complete infrastructures for running a business such as good public transportation, office building and co-working space, highspeed internet, 5G, logistics, etc.
That’s why most of the foreigners and Thai prefer to start their first business in Bangkok and they must seek a lawyer in Bangkok to accompany and assist them.
In case you need information about setting up a business, you can read information here: Thailand Company Registration.
Property Acquisition: Bangkok also has a huge of property availability in good locations whether condominium, land, house, villa, warehouse etc. That attracts people to come to live or do business in Bangkok. And they also need a good lawyer in Bangkok to accompany them to buy or lease the property.
You can read an overview information about property here: Thailand Property Overview
Thailand Visa: It is important for every foreigner who decides to live in Thailand to obtain long term visa and also permanent residence. The lawyer in Bangkok can assist you to prepare visa application such as business visa, Thai family visa, student visa etc. You can also read more information about visa to stay in Thailand here: Thailand Visa
Family Issues and Divorce: It is a serious matter that requires you to find a good lawyer to handle the case for you. This matter is very sensitive and it affects with your daily life. So, you need a lawyer who has expertise on this field to accommodate you.
The above is only an example, but in actual, the lawyers in Bangkok are doing a lot of area in the legal matters.
3. Segment of lawyer.
When the time comes that you will need a Bangkok lawyer to assist you for legal matters, the next thing you should know is about segment of lawyer in Bangkok Thailand. Because it will be relevant with regard to your budget and the result that you are looking for.
In the bird’s eye view, we can divide it into 3 segments as follows:
The First-Class International firm.
Most of the law firm on this segment has several offices in countries around the world and the owner of this law firm is not Thai.
The example of this law firm in this class are Baker McKenzie, Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance etc.
Normally, service rate will be computed by hourly rate.
Most of the lawyer and staff on this class can communicate in English well.
This Medium Class firm.
This segment of law firm usually has office in Bangkok and other provinces in Thailand, but does not have office in other countries. (some of them declare that they have, but not it is not real)
The owner of this class is combined with Thai and Foreigner.
The service rate can be a flat rate and hourly rate which will depend on negotiation or company policy.
The lawyers on this case can be a combination of a person who can speak English and cannot speak English.
We, Siam Attorney also consider ourselves as a Medium Class Firm.
We apologize that we cannot provide other example for you, we would like to avoid any conflicts as we may have different perspective with the other firms’ owners (they may think they are first class, but we may think they are medium).
The Low Class firm.
Most likely, this law firm had just set up recently within the past few years and have not experienced has not yet experienced assisting foreigners.
They usually do simple cases like debt of credit card, debt from loan, bounced cheque.
Most of the lawyer also cannot communicate in English or can speak English poorly.
The rate for this class may be cheap, but we think you will get bad experience. Because they will leave your case once they observe that the cost to handle your case is over the fee that they received from you.
Again, we apologize that we cannot provide examples for you, we would like to avoid any conflicts as we may have different perspective with the other firms’ owners and it may be considered as defamation towards the firm.
4. Why you should hire Thai lawyer instead of foreign lawyer.
As you may have observed in clause 1, it is not easy to become a lawyer in Thailand.
So, how come the foreigner who hasn’t passed any exam about the Thai Law can be an expert in Thai Law?
And the Thai Lawyer also know the theory or logic of the law better than the foreigner who never studied about Thai Law or just read books from foreign authors as well as just took a few Thai Language lessons.
Our legal perspective is unique from other countries, because we draft the law base on our culture ever since the establishment of the country. An example of this particular law that was established based on the culture of Thailand is the Immigration Law which was drafted over 100 years ago.
Moreover, our legal documents and government form paper is in Thai language. The government always issued documents in Thai Language that’s why you need a lawyer who cannot just speak, read or write Thai but can also understand the purpose of the documents.
And one of reason is that Thailand does not allow the foreigners to practice or work as a lawyer.
That means the foreigner who function as lawyers in Thailand is illegal.
You can see the reference from here: Prohibited Occupations for Foreigners
By the above reason, we do suggest you to discuss and work with Thai licensed lawyers instead of foreign lawyer in order to secure your own benefit and for the sake of a good result with your case.
5. What you should consider before hiring lawyer in Bangkok.
There’s a huge number of lawyers in Bangkok with several law firms, but it is not easy to find a good lawyer which suitable for your case.
Here is something that you should consider before engaging with them:
A. They have a lawyer license to practice their profession.
Profession as lawyer in Thailand must have a license as above mentioned. Because they must pass the exam from the Lawyers Council Under the Royal Patronage.
If they do something wrong with their duty, the Lawyer Council can control them.
Be Careful, there are quite a few who pretends that they are a lawyer in Bangkok, but they do not have a license. This kind of lawyer just learn about the law by reading in social media or use to experience with something and can advised with a wrong information.
You should ask them for their copy of lawyer license before engaging with them. Nonetheless, it’s a document they can provide to you anytime.
B. They can communicate in English.
As a foreigner who lives in unfamiliar new country, you need a lawyer who can communicate in English and Thai.
Why?
Because the lawyer who handles your case must clearly understand what you want, what situation you are in, what evidences you have etc. And they need to provide you with a comprehensive action plan and strategy that will be implemented and associated into your case.
Moreover, along the case, you need to speak and communication with them about the ongoing situation.
English skill for lawyer is important, but not many lawyer in Thailand can communicate in English well.
Be careful because there are some lawyer who cannot speak English, but they will provide a middle man for communication with you. Because if you cannot talk with lawyer directly, some information may fail to be expressed and communicated the way you want the information to be relayed to the lawyer.
C. They have a proper office that you can easily to access.
We do understand that this is the year 2020 and everyone can work from home, but it is a good idea to find lawyer who has a proper office which you can easily access.
Why?
You can make sure that you can find or contact them after you paid the fees for your case. Because some lawyer (or those who are pretending to be a real lawyer) can disappear anytime.
You can also be confident that your file or documents will be kept safely.
You can see the environment of the lawyer’s work place and how professional they are and see the real team that will handle your case.
Be careful about service offices or instant offices, because it can be set up and shut down easily.
Just find the proper office, we not mean you have to see that the lawyer has a luxury office. After all, luxury is not the basis for good service.
D. They expertise in the matter that you need help.
You cannot ask a Thai Chief to cook Italian food for you!
It is the same thing that you need to know where you are, what kind of help you need etc. and then looking for a lawyer who has expertise in such aspect and matters to solve the problem for you.
Because if you can find the right person, you will get all the information with the right direction and instrument that needs to be implemented and associated to your case.
But if you get an incompetent lawyer, your case will be messed up and will cause more trouble than solving, it’s like adding fuel to the fire.
You can observe by how they answer your question. It is comprised of confusing information or does not go to the point that you needed.
E. They charge service fee with reasonable price.
The price for one glass of water 100THB is expensive, but how about when they serve one glass of wine instead?
The legal fee of a lawyer in Bangkok varies rage, but you should look for the one who provides reasonable price. Not cheap!
If you are just looking for a cheap price, they will leave your case at the end. Because once they observe that they are losing instead of winning they will not continue to handle your case, they will not do that for the sake of dignity.
Other way around, you do not need to hire a lawyer whose charges are over expensive.
The fact that you should consider when you compare the price is the experience of the lawyer, how they can provide smart answer, similar case that they used to handle, how their office look like, the number of hours that needs to be spent, how complicated the case is, how far and how often do they need to travel outside Bangkok etc.
In short, it must fair with value of the money you pay.
F. They provide agreement or contract before they handle the case.
The legal service is like other services of which you should ask for a service agreement or contract to make sure that the lawyer will provide the services to you.
Most likely, the law firm in Thailand will provide Retainer Agreement showing detail of the services that will be provided with the full scope and detail with what they are going to do for you.
In the agreement it will show the fee and payment schedule to secure that the lawyer will not keep asking money from you. (except if you agree to pay by hourly rate)
Conclusion.
We hope the above information can provide you some idea how you can find a good Bangkok lawyer. These methods can be used when you look for a lawyer in other provinces of Thailand as well.
If you are new or it is your first time to travel to Bangkok and you need to do something here like set up business, Thai Visa, family issue, accident or other, you need to find or consult with a lawyer first.
We know Thailand is the country of smiles, but you should not underestimate the situation around you, because we’ve witnessed a lot of problems that occurred to the foreigners here.
It is a good idea to find a lawyer in Bangkok to secure your benefit and standby for you during you are in Bangkok.
Hope you enjoy your stay in Bangkok.
Thank you.
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