Do I need civil effect?
Civil effect gives you access to the regulated legal professions, notably the professions of a practicing lawyer (‘advocaat’ in Dutch), judge, or prosecutor in the Netherlands. You can become an advocaat if you work and train in a Dutch law firm for three years.
You do not need civil effect, or be an advocaat, in order to do legal work or to give legal advice. If you want to pursue a career which requires you to have a university degree, but not necessarily a law degree, then civil effect is not strictly necessary either. For example, you may then even combine your Bachelor’s degree in law with a Master’s degree in another discipline, like economics, arts and culture, etc. In other words, you do not need to practice law simply because you have a Bachelor’s degree in law.
How to obtain civil effect?
Civil effect means that your Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes were developed as such that you satisfy the requirements to be appointed to the Dutch bar and/or the judiciary. In other words, it gives you the right to start training to become a practicing lawyer (advocaat), a public prosecutor, or a judge in the Netherlands. According to the law, members of the bar* and the judiciary** are admissible, if they have completed both a Bachelor’s and Master’s programme in law at a public Dutch university.
To obtain civil effect, fluent knowledge of the Dutch language is necessary.
How do I choose?
It all depends on what you want to do after you graduate. To enter into broader, not specifically legal careers, you may graduate without civil effect. You should go for Dutch civil effect if:
you know for certain that you wish to become a practicing lawyer in the Netherlands;
you know for certain that you wish to train to become a qualified lawyer in a country that requires you to have Dutch civil effect first;
you do not know yet but want to keep all options open.
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