The oldest law firm in Sri Lanka is F. J. & G. de Saram, which dates its founding to 13 May 1841. Julius & Creasy followed in 1879 and D. L. & F. de Saram in 1898. All three began as proctors' practices and grew into commercial firms after the profession was unified in 1974.
Those dates only make sense against the history of the profession itself. A Colombo proctor of 1841 worked in a court system built by the Dutch and reorganised by the British, under rules that kept the men who drafted deeds apart from the men who argued cases. This article sets out how the profession was formed, which firms can document their founding, and where the Bar stands now.
Courts before the firms: the Dutch and British inheritance
The Dutch East India Company governed the maritime provinces from 1658 to 1796 and brought Roman-Dutch law with it. It set up three principal courts, at Colombo, Galle and Jaffna, and a network of circuit courts known as the Land Raad, each presided over by a dissava. The Dutch also had the Thesavalamai, the customary law of the Jaffna Tamils, codified in 1707. Roman-Dutch law remains the residual common law of Sri Lanka.
The British took the Dutch maritime provinces in 1796, and those provinces became the Crown Colony of Ceylon on 25 March 1802 following the Treaty of Amiens. British rule extended over the whole island only after the Kandyan Convention of 1815. The Charter of Justice of 18 April 1801 created the Supreme Court of Ceylon. A second Charter in 1833, issued alongside the Colebrooke-Cameron reforms that reorganised the colony into provinces, gave the court jurisdiction over the whole island. Section 17 of the 1833 Charter empowered the Supreme Court to admit and enrol advocates and proctors of good repute and competent knowledge and ability, on examination. That single section defined the shape of the profession for the next 140 years. Appeals from the Supreme Court went to the Privy Council in London until the Court of Appeal Act No. 44 of 1971 ended them.
Advocates and proctors: a divided Bar
From 1833 the profession had two branches. Advocates were the equivalent of English barristers. They practised from chambers, appeared in the higher courts and took their instructions from a proctor rather than directly from the client. Proctors were the equivalent of solicitors. They kept offices, dealt with clients, drew deeds and briefed advocates for the hearing. Many proctors were also notaries public, and conveyancing was their bread and butter.
Training was formalised in the 1870s. The Council of Legal Education was set up under Ordinance No. 19 of 1873 and, under its authority, Ceylon Law College opened in 1874 to prepare candidates for the advocates' and proctors' examinations. The Council of Legal Education Ordinance No. 2 of 1900 incorporated the Council, with the Chief Justice, the puisne justices, the Attorney General and the Solicitor General sitting alongside five advocates and three proctors. The college's main building at 244 Hulftsdorp Street was put up in 1911. Some candidates read for the English Bar at the Inns of Court in London instead. That is why several of Sri Lanka's leaders who were lawyers were called in London years before they swore their oaths as advocates in Ceylon.
The nineteenth-century firms
Three firms in practice today can document a founding date before 1900.
- F. J. & G. de Saram (1841): on 13 May 1841 Fredrick John de Saram, then nineteen, began his apprenticeship under the Colombo proctor Andriess Nicholas Martensz. He was enrolled as a proctor of the Supreme Court in 1843 and executed his first deed in 1845. The firm records that he advised on the formation of many of the 49 companies incorporated between 1876 and 1897. George de Saram, one of the founder's seven sons, joined the partnership in 1901 and gave the firm its present name, and it registered under the Business Names Ordinance in 1918 as the oldest surviving partnership in the country. The firm describes itself as the oldest law firm in Sri Lanka and the oldest continuing partnership.
- Julius & Creasy (1879): established by two British solicitors, it grew into one of the oldest and largest civil law firms in the country and is described in the Colombo press as the second oldest. It marked its 145th anniversary in 2024.
- D. L. & F. de Saram (1898): founded by Richard Francis de Saram, who left the family firm to set up on his own, and carried on by his sons Douglas and Fred de Saram, after whom the firm is named. The partnership has passed down the family, with grandsons and great-grandsons of Fred de Saram among the partners today.
The twentieth-century firms
The firms founded after independence tend to have a different origin. Several grew out of the chambers of a single practitioner rather than a proctors' office, and most were built for commercial rather than notarial work.
- Neelakandan & Neelakandan (1962): founded by Velupillai Murugesu in the Hemas Building, Colombo, which is now a protected heritage building. The firm practised as Murugesu & Kularatne from 1968. Kandiah Neelakandan, enrolled in 1970, became a partner in the early 1970s and the firm took the name Murugesu & Neelakandan before its present name.
- Tiruchelvam Associates (1982): founded by Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam PC and Sithie Tiruchelvam, and developed from the chambers of M. Tiruchelvam QC, a former Solicitor-General who took silk in 1959. Neelan Tiruchelvam, called to the Bar as an advocate in 1968, was a constitutional lawyer and Member of Parliament until his assassination in Colombo on 29 July 1999.
- Paul Ratnayeke Associates (1987): founded by J. H. Paul Ratnayeke as a corporate, commercial, litigation and financial practice.
- Nithya Partners (1997): established, in its own words, to deliver a modern and responsive service in corporate and financial law, and typical of the firms formed after the economy was opened up.
| Firm | Founded | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| F. J. & G. de Saram | 1841 | Apprenticeship of F. J. de Saram under proctor A. N. Martensz, Colombo |
| Julius & Creasy | 1879 | Two British solicitors, Colombo |
| D. L. & F. de Saram | 1898 | Richard Francis de Saram; carried on by sons Douglas and Fred |
| Neelakandan & Neelakandan | 1962 | Velupillai Murugesu, Hemas Building, Colombo |
| Tiruchelvam Associates | 1982 | Neelan and Sithie Tiruchelvam, from the chambers of M. Tiruchelvam QC |
| Paul Ratnayeke Associates | 1987 | J. H. Paul Ratnayeke |
| Nithya Partners | 1997 | Corporate and financial law partnership |
Hulftsdorp: the legal quarter
Nearly all of this history happened within a few hundred metres of one hill in Colombo. Hulftsdorp takes its name from Gerard Pieterszoon Hulft, the Dutch general who laid siege to Portuguese Colombo in October 1655 and was killed there on 10 April 1656. The name means Hulft's town. The court complex on the hill has Dutch origins and was built out under the British. Today it houses the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the Hulftsdorp court complex with its High Courts, Commercial High Courts and District Courts, and Sri Lanka Law College. The structure of the courts that sit on the hill is set out in how Sri Lanka's court system works.
From conveyancing to commercial practice
The work of the oldest firms tracks the economy. F. J. & G. de Saram's own timeline is a useful record. In the 1840s the founder was drawing deeds and notarial instruments for the plantation economy, including crop bonds under which future crops were consigned to financial houses for sale in London. By the 1870s and 1880s the firm was incorporating companies. In 1939 it advised on the drafting of the Bank of Ceylon Ordinance. After the economy was liberalised in 1978 it reshaped itself as a specialist corporate firm, and in 1997 it moved to De Saram Place as a full-service commercial practice.
That arc, from proctor and notary to corporate adviser, is common to the older houses. The nineteenth-century firms were proctors' firms because proctors were the branch of the profession that could hold client files and property records. When plantation land, then trading companies, then banks needed documentation, the proctors' offices did it. Advocates, by contrast, worked from chambers on briefs sent by proctors. The modern firm that handles both the transaction and the trial in one office follows from the merger of the two branches. Practice areas such as corporate and real estate work and civil litigation now sit inside the same firm as a matter of course.
One profession: the Administration of Justice Law No. 44 of 1973
The division ended with the Administration of Justice Law No. 44 of 1973, enacted by the National State Assembly under Felix Dias Bandaranaike as Minister of Justice. The Law came into operation in 1974. Advocates and proctors already on the rolls were enrolled as Attorneys-at-Law of the Supreme Court, and every practitioner admitted since has been an Attorney-at-Law entitled both to appear in court and to deal directly with clients. The professional bodies merged in the same year: the Bar Council, which had represented advocates, and the Law Society, which had represented proctors, became the Bar Association of Sri Lanka in 1974, with H. W. Jayewardene QC as its founder president.
The statutory basis for admission was restated after the 1978 Constitution. Section 40(1) of the Judicature Act No. 2 of 1978 provides that the Supreme Court may, in accordance with rules for the time being in force, admit and enrol as Attorneys-at-Law persons of good repute and of competent knowledge and ability. The wording is almost identical to section 17 of the 1833 Charter. The examinations remain those of Sri Lanka Law College, administered by the Council of Legal Education, and the college is still the only institution through which a candidate can enrol. The rank of Queen's Counsel lapsed with the republic in 1972; senior attorneys were later designated President's Counsel, a title introduced in 1984.
Where the Bar stands today
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka reported about 21,300 members at December 2020, organised through 88 branch associations across the island. Membership is voluntary for an Attorney-at-Law, but the Association is treated as the apex body of the profession and nominates two members to the Council of Legal Education. Sri Lanka Law College enrols about 1,500 students. The profession that began with a handful of proctors and advocates on Hulftsdorp hill is now measured in tens of thousands.
The firms in the table are the ones that can put a date to their origin from their own records. Many more practices, in Colombo and in the provincial court towns, were formed in the decades after 1974 by attorneys who could now do both sides of the work. These chambers, from 1987, are among them. The dates matter less as a ranking than as evidence that legal practice on the island has been continuous since the Dutch period, and that the firms which endured were the ones that changed their work when the economy did.
