Picture a regional merger and acquisitions deal spanning Gaborone, Sandton and Lusaka, or an arbitration seated in one Southern African Development Community (SADC) state but involving assets and witnesses in three others. Today, that work is co-ordinated through a lead firm working alongside local counsel in each jurisdiction. That relationship has real strengths: local counsel brings critical knowledge of domestic law, procedure and regulators, while the lead firm holds the overall strategy and client relationship together across borders. A new regional mechanism could change how some of that interaction and co-ordination unfolds.

What's on the table

The Legal Practice Council invited stakeholders to comment on a draft SADC Mutual Recognition Agreement for Legal Services (the MRA), developed with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the DTIC). Broadly, the DTIC drives South Africa’s negotiating mandate and the parliamentary process needed to bind the country, while the LPC, as the statutory regulator and “Competent Authority” under the MRA, operationalises recognition, registration and discipline at the professional level. The DTIC framed its consultation around five areas of focus, including whether the provisions suitably support cross-border transactions, whether the MRA should be adopted by all SADC members to ensure reciprocity and the identification of regulatory risks and any amendments South Africa would need to make to the Legal Practice Act to give effect to the MRA.

The trigger is the SADC Protocol on Trade in Services, which came into force in September 2025 and obliges member states to negotiate mutual recognition disciplines for professional services, including law, within two years. The principles to be agreed must cater for the region's legal diversity, which encompasses common-law (judicial precedent-driven) and civil-law (codified statute-centred) jurisdictions, as well as systems that incorporate indigenous law.

Stamping the passport

Looking further into the future, how would the "passport" work in practice? A lawyer with a recognised law degree, a valid home licence, at least three years' unsupervised post-admission experience, a clean conduct record and host-state indemnity cover could apply to a host regulator for recognition without repeating training or examinations. Where the move is between a common-law and a civil-law jurisdiction, the host regulator would instead assess foundational knowledge and may require further study, examination or practical training before recognition. Applications must be decided within two months, with recognised lawyers then subject to the host jurisdiction's own rules of practice, conduct and discipline.

A long-established precedent for a mutual recognition approach exists in the European Union (EU), where lawyers have enjoyed cross-border practice rights since 1977 under the Lawyers Services Directive, the Lawyers Establishment Directive and the broader Recognition of Professional Qualifications Directive. A lawyer may advise on EU, host-state or international law in another member state without local registration and may acquire the host state's professional title to practice there on a permanent basis after three years of effective practice, without further examination. This regime is widely regarded as a benchmark for regulated professions in the single market. It demonstrates that mutual recognition of lawyers can work effectively where the principles governing a common legal order have been agreed and are underpinned by a sufficient level of harmonisation. Closer to home, the East African Community (EAC) offers the clearest African precedent for the SADC approach, and the one the SADC Secretariat has itself examined for lessons. Under the EAC Common Market Protocol, four mutual recognition agreements, covering accountancy, engineering, architecture and veterinary science. have been negotiated and signed. Afifth, covering advocates, remains under negotiation and is not yet concluded.

SADC's MRA is at any earlier stage of development relative to either comparator. As at September 2025, no SADC mutual recognition agreement for any profession had been concluded, with sectoral texts still being drafting or stakeholder consultation. The EAC's experience, including the delay in concluding its own MRA for advocates despite having completed four others, offers a useful caution. Cross-border recognition for lawyers may involve more contentious negotiations because of the philosophical differences between member states' legal systems and the close relationship between legal practice and national sovereignty, court systems and procedural law. This also underscores the opportunity SADC legal profession, through this consultation, to shape a workable instrument from the outset rather than having to adapt to an agreement negotiated without its input.

The implications go beyond deal work. The MRA is designed to reduce compliance costs, accelerate market entry and support seamless multi-jurisdictional service delivery. That matters as much in dispute resolution, whether cross-border litigation support, regional arbitrations or enforcement of awards and judgments across SADC, as it does in transactions, allowing practitioners to move with a case rather than hand it off entirely to local counsel.

The road to adoption

Domestically, the MRA is still a work in progress as it cannot simply be signed into effect by a single department or regulator. Under section 231 of the Constitution, the national executive negotiates and signs international agreements, but Parliament must approve them by resolution in both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces before they bind the Republic. Whether the MRA, as a sub-agreement beneath a Protocol already ratified by Parliament, qualifies as a “technical, administrative or executive” agreement that can bypass full parliamentary approval under section 231(3) is a question for the State Law Advisers. The safer and more likely course, however, is full approval under section 231(2).

Even after parliamentary approval, the MRA is unlikely to be self-executing. It expressly requires each state party’s competent authority to recommend necessary changes to domestic laws and regulations within 24 months. In South Africa, that means amendments to the Legal Practice Act to accommodate cross-border recognition, regulatory co-operation and the disciplinary framework the MRA contemplates. Those amendments must follow the ordinary legislative process: an amendment bill introduced in Parliament, committee deliberation and passage through both houses. It would therefore not be a straightforward or quick exercise to bring the MRA into operation in South Africa.

Why local knowledge still wins

Licence recognition and leave to practise do not necessarily translate into local knowledge. A recognised lawyer must still practise strictly according to the host jurisdiction's rules. Company law, tax, procedure and regulatory frameworks remain distinctly local and no MRA substitutes for on-the-ground expertise in each market. Cross-border recognition does, however, promise to create further opportunities and enhance incentives for legal practitioners to broaden and deepen their commercial and cultural awareness of, and understanding of the rules of, neighbouring jurisdictions.

That is the model Webber Wentzel already operates on: as a leading full-service firm on the continent, with genuine local expertise across African jurisdictions, an MRA would streamline how we collaborate regionally, not replace the local grounding that underpins it.

Written by Paul Crosland, Partner & Sabelo Ndlovu, Associate, Webber Wentzel