APEC Legal Services Initiative

The APEC Legal Services Initiative (APEC LSI) seeks to enhance transparency of requirements and procedures for professional legal services providers to practice foreign law across APEC economies, identify information gaps, and aid in the development of best practices for the regulation of foreign lawyers. While respecting the integrity of each economy's decision-making, the APEC LSI aims to strengthen the capacity of APEC economies to facilitate the provision of services in foreign and/or international law.

The APEC LSI is sponsored by Australia and co-sponsored by Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Chinese Taipei and the United States.

The first stage of the APEC LSI is to collate a 'database' or 'inventory' of relevant regulatory frameworks (together with other relevant information such as contact details for regulators in each jurisdiction) to increase accessibility to the information for regulators, professional bodies, legal firms, business people, higher education institutions and students. The focus is to be on:

A consultant was retained to compile the inventory, in accordance with the terms of reference.

A report was prepared which includes a draft inventory of relevant regulatory frameworks from those APEC economies and sub-national jurisdictions that responded to the APEC LSI Questionnaire. The draft inventory was discussed at the APEC LSI Workshop in Singapore on 30 and 31 July 2009. This website contains the inventory as agreed at the Workshop.