Rights of audience

In common law, a right of audience is generally a right of a lawyer to appear and conduct proceedings in court on behalf of their client. In English law, there is a fundamental distinction between barristers, who have rights of audience in the superior courts, and solicitors, who have rights of audience in the lower courts, unless a certificate of advocacy is obtained, which allows a solicitor to represent clients in the superior courts also. However, there is no such distinction in American law.

In superior courts, generally only barristers or advocates have a right of audience. Depending on jurisdiction, solicitors may have a right of audience in Magistrates and County or District courts. Further, a person appearing in court without legal representation has a right of audience but a person who is not a lawyer that assists a party to a legal matter in court does not have a right of audience. See D v S (Rights of Audience) [1997] 2 FCR 217

In English law, a right of audience is a right to appear and conduct proceedings in court.

Traditionally, only barristers had rights of audience in every court in England and Wales, and, as of 2008^[update], they still enjoy rights of audience in every court in England and Wales. However, solicitors have always had rights of audience in the magistrates' court and the county court. Solicitors' clerks have also traditionally been allowed to be heard in proceedings in chambers in the High Court, such as summonses for directions (now known as case management hearings), and subsequent changes have preserved these rights, as explained by District Judge Robert Hill in an article in the Law Society's Gazette. Also, in 1972 Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, the Lord Chancellor, exercising his powers under the Courts Act 1971, granted solicitors who appear for a defendant in the magistrates' court, the right to appear also in the Crown Court on any appeal or committal for sentence in the case. Lord Hailsham's announcement is here Rights of audience were granted to a wider class of persons under the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, s.27, as amended by the Access to Justice Act 1999, ss.36-39. The 1999 Act removed earlier restrictions on employed lawyers, such as counsel for corporations, exercising rights of audience (ss.37-38)

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