The contracting of legal services under Law 9/2017, november 8th, on Public Sector Contracts

Abstract

Directive 2014/24/EU, passed by the European Parliament on January 14th 2014 and published in the Official Journal of the European Union on March 28th 2014, throws new light on the legal regime of general service contracts, and particularly on the regime applicable to contracts of legal services. Once the Directive has been transposed into Law 9/2017 of November 8th on Public Sector Contracts, the exclusions of legal services from their regulation and application, far from being respected, have not been addressed by the national legislator, nor even in the regulation of a simplified system for contracting these services. This paper addresses the treatment of contracting legal services under the Public Contracts Law, the pecularities of the contract of these services based on mutual trust as an element that distinguishes the provision of legal services, and the need for differentiated treatment when contracting certain legal tools –those excluded by art. 10.d) of the Directive–, as a possible measure in application of Directive 2014/24/EU.