Advocate was referred to as “representative litigant” in the earlier days in Mongolia. Since 1920s, “representative litigants” and their conducts have been regulated by law in Mongolia. Advocate is a lawyer who is specialized in providing professional legal counseling to individuals and legal entities.

Advocate has the advantage to “represent the client as an advocate in court proceedings to protect their rights and legal interest” in addition to conducting general activities that are permitted for lawyers.

If you are in need of legal counseling, drafting contracts and other documentations, or involved in any kind of disputes which further needs to be resolved in court, you should contact an advocate for advice.

Legal counsel and legal information providing are two different concepts. However, the difference between these two may not be clear for the general public. In brief, legal counsel must be provided by licensed lawyers and advocates, on the other hand, legal information can be provided by a non-professional.

Legal advice is a legal opinion provided by meticulous, attentive thinking process of lawyers and advocates; whereas legal information is merely a speculation and reflection of non-professional individuals. Therefore, in this section, we will try to dive deeper into the difference between legal counsel and legal information.

If you find yourself in need of a legal advice from a lawyer due to disputes and other legal issues, you have to sign a Letter of Engagement/Retainer in writing with your lawyer firsthand. In other words, by signing a contract, legal rights and responsibilities between you and your lawyer/advocate shall be established upon signing such agreement.

Legal counseling has the following special characteristics.

For example:

• It requires legal theory, knowledge and skills
• Depending on each distinct case and circumstances, it requires specialized knowledge and professionalism
• It affects someone’s legal status positively or negatively
• Establishes rights and responsibilities in front of the person seeking the advice

Legal counseling differs from legal information because it recommends the third party to make certain acts or inactions depending on the circumstances. In other words, legal counseling directly tells the clients what they should do rather than how to get there.

For example:

• Draft, review, revise legal documents and contracts, provide legal opinions
• Represent individuals and legal entities in front of the authorities and the court
• To act as an authorized representative in legal relations
• Identify legal outcome of the resolutions and acts

Legal counseling offers and recommends direct and specific acts, whereas legal information does not require the third party to conduct certain moves and is usually very general and does not have clear guarantee of truth. People tend to receive legal information and counseling from newspapers, websites and other medias. In order to clarify that it is not a legitimate legal counseling, such information usually contains a remark that says “we are not responsible for any outcomes that may arise from the information and advice provided above”. As mentioned earlier, the client-attorney relation shall only be established upon a written retainer agreement.

Legal information has the following special characteristics.

For example:

• Legal information can be provided by and found in newspapers, magazines, internet and websites
• It comes out as a casual advice from your family, friends and co-workers
• It can be found in brochures, guidelines and handbooks provided by the Court, NGOs and law firms

If you type in “How to establish a company?” on Google, plenty of information can be found on the internet. It should be duly noted that those are merely legal information, not professional legal counseling.

In sum, depending on the issues that you are currently facing, both legal counseling and legal information can make a positive impact. However, if you are in criminal and other court proceedings, or prosecuted as the accused, we hereby advise you to contact professional lawyers for legal counseling.

There seem to be various discussions surrounding the lawyers or advocates’’ fees in the society, demanding to decrease the cost of legal counseling.

In order to zealously protect your rights and legal interests, lawyers have the responsibility to constantly pay for costs of running a law firm, malpractice insurance and other relevant taxes and fees. In addition to that, there is a considerable cost and commitment of acquiring a law degree or getting a higher degree, lawyers must continuously evolve study and participate in various training programs. The public must be reminded of the factors that were mentioned above.

You have to understand that lawyers are expensive because you get a lot in return of the fee that you paid to the lawyer. By paying the lawyer’s fees, you are hiring a professional lawyer or advocate to work for you. You get a professional lawyer who will lose sleep worrying about your legal problem so you can finally get some rest. After a client signs a Letter of Engagement with the lawyer, your problems will be your lawyer’s problems and it creates the high level of ethical and legal responsibilities for the lawyer. Such responsibilities are clearly and strictly stated in the Law on the Legal Status of Lawyers and Lawyers’ Code of Conducts. Therefore, saying that the cost of legal counseling must be reduced is no different than demanding the said responsibilities and standards to be violated.

The only solution to reduce the cost of legal services past a certain point is to also reduce the lawyer’s high-level obligation to the client.

Therefore, to sum up this situation, when we talk about lowering the cost of legal services, what we are really talking about is fundamentally changing what it means for a lawyer to represent a client.

The professional responsibilities of lawyers are rather simple. They must fully focus on the client’s legal issues and disputes. Client’s problems are the lawyer’s problems as well.

Lawyer, Management adviser to law firms

Sam Glover

In our current free market economy, everyone on the society is required to participate in various different relations independently, while exercising certain rights, duties and responsibilities. For example, borrowing or lending money, acquiring or selling real estates, establishing a joint action by sharing the profits or lease of apartment, these are all common decisions that we make every day.

When encountering such relations, an individual must have a certain degree of knowledge and information to protect their interests. If you signed a contract with unfavorable terms, there is no way out but to pay the price. Principles such as, “Contract is a contract” and “Ignorance of law excuses no one” are effectively ruling in this modern world.

Most people sign troublesome contracts and come to the lawyer afterwards seeking remedy for their loss. However, it is more convenient to contact a lawyer and at least have a “30 minutes” of legal counseling before becoming a party to the contract, or before expressing your will. By spending specific amount of time and investment regarding the important decision that corresponds to your precious time and properties, you can avoid future unforeseeable greater costs and losing your valuable time.

Lately, business holders prefer to get a continuous legal counseling service from law firms. Continuous legal counseling service does not only save your time and investments, but also it is being serviced by a professional team.

Since day-to-day legal procedures require certain knowledge of the law, you would probably agree that there is not enough time or resources to do it yourself. For example, paying debts, drafting contracts and negotiations, preparing relevant documents in accordance with the law, pursuing your dispute in courts or other authorities etc., Instead of spending your time and money to resolve all those complicated and time consuming activities by yourself, it is much better for you to focus on your main business activities. In times like these, continuous legal counseling service will be your loyal ally.

Therefore, we hereby introduce the advantages of having a continuous legal counseling service.

YOU WILL HAVE MORE TIME TO FOCUS ON YOUR MAIN BUSINESS ACTIVITIES WITHOUT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT LEGAL ISSUES

By entrusting us with legal issues such as drafting contracts and negotiations, preparing legal documentations, representing the company in various proceedings, you will have the time to focus on your main activities without having to worry about legal issues. Most importantly, as an experienced and professional law firm, we will provide you with legal counseling regarding tax, accounting, state inspection, labor law and respectfully we prepare drafts of relevant documents with regards to your business activities. In addition, we will provide you with continuous advices to identify the reason behind the dispute and what to consider more in your future contracts and negotiations.

SUBSTANTIALLY REDUCES BUSINESS EXPENSES

Legal disputes and proceedings are complex and require a long time to fully get resolved. Thus, companies face the need to create a position of an in-house lawyer and select suitable candidates. However, in practice, doing so requires the employer to ensure the training, providing the equipment and salary for the lawyer as well as making sure that they pass the bar exam and are specialized in your field of business. On the other hand, by choosing to have a continuous legal counseling service from law firms, all legal issues can be solved with less than twice the amount you would have spent on an in-house lawyer.

A PROFESSIONAL TEAM WILL BE WORKING FOR YOU

A team of professional lawyers have the ability to resolve any legal issues simultaneously. In other words, by having a continuous legal counseling service, you are hiring a lawyer, specialized lawyer and an advocate at the same time. Because the law firm consists of skilled and experienced lawyers who are capable of dealing with a wide variety of legal issues professionally. Hiring a whole team of professionals while spending less has many advantages in addition to cost effectiveness. The most important thing you have to do is to choose the right service suitable for your company.