The new Advocacy and Legal Consultancy Law has recently entered into force bringing into effect major changes to the way the legal profession in Oman is regulated, including new examination requirements for Omani lawyers wishing to practise as advocates who plead before the courts. The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs has issued new regulations and guidelines to provide more details on what these exams would entail. This blog post will highlight some details that are found in the new Arabic language guide that the MJLA issued concerning the transitional requirements for advocates who have registered before the entry into force of the new law and who would complete their two-year training requirements before 3 October 2025.
Under the new Advocacy and Legal Consultancy Law, a lawyer would have to register as a trainee advocate and complete several formalities before qualifying as an advocate permitted to appear before primary courts. These formalities require registering a trainee advocate in an advocacy law firm for a period of two years, undertake a formal training programme organised by the MJLA, and complete an exam. At the time of writing, the MJLA has only published the details of a transitional training programme and exam that trainee advocates that have registered before the entry into force of the law and who complete a period of two years before 3 October 2025 must perform.
For trainee advocates that fall under this category, the MJLA has detailed in its newly published guide that the mandatory training programme will be an online self-study programme delivered through a series of pre-recorded videos. The programme will cover topics such as court procedure, litigation skills, statement writing skills, administrative law, labour law, penal law, analytics skills, commercial law, personal status law, and advocacy ethics.
In addition to the requirement to complete the online course, trainee advocates who complete their training period before 3 October 2025 would also be required to complete an exam. This will be a single 3-hour paper exam taken in person in the Arabic language. This exam will have three parts: legal knowledge questions, an exercise for analysing a hypothetical case file, and an exercise for writing a legal opinion or a section of a contract.
Trainee advocates are required to score 70% or more to pass the exam. There will also be a fee of 50 Rial Omani to enter the exam.
The actual date for the exam has not been specified yet, and is expected to be announced by the MJLA on social media in the upcoming months.
You can view the Arabic language guide for the transitional qualification requirements for trainee advocates on the link below: