About Lebenberg

Our specialisation and our structure make us unique. The law is complex and constantly changing. Therefore we have chosen to focus our practice on a limited number of legal fields to maintain our high-level legal skills and provide efficient services to our clients. In addition to our core area of expertise, Swedish and inter­national succession law, we undertake assignments that are closely related to this kind of matter or where our skills within succession law can benefit the client. A more comprehensive description of the legal fields in which we work is provided under Practice areas.

Consistent with our values we believe that cooperation and the exchange of experience within our law offices benefits both the client and promotes our own development. We have therefore structured our business accordingly and created an open-door atmosphere where we work together to ensure that our clients benefit from our accumulated experience and skills. Not only is this commensurate with a good working environment for all partners and staff but it also enables constructive dialogue. We all share a vested interest in contributing to a case where assistance is appropriate; the most important issue is our performance for the client.

Although the advocate who is most suitable for an assignment will assist the client, we work as a team providing access to our accumulated experience and knowledge. In this way, we can utilise the special qualities of all of our partners and staff in the best interests of the client.  In some matters it may also be advantageous to share out the work tasks, allowing these matters to be dealt with more efficiently, saving both time and costs – for example, in the case of extensive estate administration work and major litigation. We believe that no other advocate law offices within our fields of operation can compete with our capacity to provide specialist, personalised services.

We place equal focus on all of our cases. Some commercial law offices in Sweden also offer their services in the same areas of law that represent our core areas. However, such business often only constitutes a small part of their operations. With our selectively limited areas of practice, there is no risk that any singel case will be overshadowed by numerous assignments of quite a different nature.

Having chosen not to become a member of any international legal network affords us the independence, in each individual case, to consider only our clients’ best interests when engaging additional advocates or other legal advisors that our clients may need in Sweden or abroad. Our extensive experience within our practice areas means that over the years we have established a large number of informal relations with colleagues around the world, and these resources are of course also available to our clients.

If you are seeking legal assistance, you may find that there are firms that offer various legal services without calling themselves ’advokater’ (advocates). This is invariably due to the fact that those involved are not advocates. In Sweden, anyone can actually call himself or herself a lawyer (jurist), run law offices and offer legal advice without any control by the government. However, the title ’advokat’ may only be used by a lawyer who has been accredited with the title and admitted as a member of the Swedish Bar Association (Sveriges advokatsamfund).

For you as a client, there are several advantages to engaging an advocate instead of another legal advisor.

Right education, training and experience
If you consult an advocate, you will be advised by a person with the right education, training and experience. To become a member of the Swedish Bar Association it is necessary to have a university degree in law, a jur kand (LLM) degree, which requires approximately five years of full-time study. You then need to practice law for five years, including at least three years as an associate at an advocate law office or in private practice. It is also compulsory to pass the advocate examinations set by the Swedish Bar Association; a training course concluded with a verbal examination. In order to be admitted to the Swedish Bar Association, and generally considered appropriate to practise as an advocate, it is also necessary to be of sound financial standing and a person of repute. According to the rules of the Swedish Bar Association, an advocate must also undertake 18 hours of further education every year.

Advocate practice standards
An advocate must comply with the Bar Association’s ethical rules on good advocate practice standards. These include, among other things, rules on how advocate law offices should be run and managed, and the duties of the advocates in relation to their clients.

Duty of loyalty
A cornerstone principle for advocate practice standards is that advocates must be independent in their professional practice and that they have a duty of loyalty to their clients and no-one else.

Duty of confidentiality
An advocate also has a statutory duty of confidentiality, which means that an advocate may not disclose anything that he has become aware of in confidence, except under very special circumstances governed by law. This duty of confidentiality also applies to the employees of an advocate, both associates and other staff.

Supervision
An advocate is subject to the supervision of the Swedish Bar Association and the Office of the Chancellor of Justice.

These particular rules do not apply to other lawyers who assist in legal issues, whether they are independent or linked to another firm, such as for example firms of undertakers. For instance, legal advisors who are not advocates have the same obligation to testify as other citizens.