Chief justice Syed Refaat Ahmed on Monday said that Bangladesh鈥檚 legal profession must modernise to keep pace with rapid global changes, including digitalisation, cross-border commerce, data-driven governance and the growing use of artificial intelligence in legal work.
He was speaking at the launch of the Continuous Professional Development programme for advocates and the Digital BLD (Bangladesh Legal Decisions) platform of the Bangladesh Bar Council.
The chief justice said that traditional legal practice and training were no longer sufficient for a justice system that aimed to be modern, efficient, and people-focused.
He said that judicial reforms over the past 16 months 鈥� such as helplines, paper-free benches, automated cause lists, digital grievance systems and improved case management 鈥� depended heavily on a well-trained and responsive Bar.
鈥楢 reforming judiciary requires a transforming Bar,鈥� he said.
He described the CPD programme as essential for improving the quality of pleadings, speeding up trials, and ensuring better use of judicial time.
The Digital BLD system, he said, would allow the Bar Council to maintain training records, track competencies and support transparency.
He also highlighted growing international cooperation, including new partnerships with Egypt, Brazil, Nepal, and other nations, noting that Bangladesh could learn from Nepal鈥檚 structured case-flow management model.
He said the Bar must now prepare lawyers for specialised areas such as commercial law, environmental law, cybercrime, family matters, climate litigation and international economic law in line with upcoming reforms in the courts.
He congratulated the Bar Council and partner organisations, saying that the new initiative would help build a more skilled, technology-ready and ethically grounded legal community, and contribute to broader judicial reform.
Attorney general Md Asaduzzaman, also the ex-officio chair of the Bangladesh Bar Council, said that he examined candidates for five days during the ongoing viva voce of advocate鈥檚 enrolment test but found fewer than 20 public university graduates or barristers had passed the written test.
He stressed that the Bar Council examination system now needed reform.
The issue had already been discussed at an executive committee meeting, he added.
According to him, candidates trained under foreign curricula cannot compete with court clerks in tests based on the Bangladeshi curriculum.
He said many private university graduates performed better in MCQs and written exams because the content aligned with local law programmes.
The attorney general said that the Bar Council was considering changes to the examination structure and would discuss it further in the next meeting.
He also stressed the need to improve lawyers鈥� professionalism, saying that many practitioners still rely on copying petitions from computer shops and struggle with drafting even after 10 to 15 years of practice.聽聽
Bar council vice-chair Zainul Abedin, Supreme Court Bar Association president AM Mahbub Uddin Khokon, and Dhaka University law professor Borhan Uddin spoke at the programme conducted by senior lawyer Ruhul Quddus Kazal, an executive member of the Bar Council.
