Lawyer from South Africa wishing to work and Live in the Netherlands

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

Bizarrely, you could work as a Legal Advisor in the Netherlands with no qualifications at all.  Rather than me C&P something from the International Bar Association; this link will take you to what they think (I'm not a lawyer).

To answer your specific questions:

Marriage - it would help, but you don't have to; the Dutch Government department responsible for all this is the IND; this link will take you to their website where they describe your options for a "Spouse, registered or unmarried partner" visa; the bottom line is you have to prove a "Long-term and exclusive relationship"; how you do that is between you and the IND, but things that prove a life together pretty much sums it up.

Positions - long-range job searching is always problematic, plus you can't start tomorrow and probably don't speak Dutch.  I've already told you that you don't need a licence, but the question is who would employ you?  My advice would be to reach out to your peers on LinkedIn and see what they did.

So what do:

It sounds like you're fiancee is going to move to the Netherlands on a skilled-migrant visa; her new employer will be sponsoring her and either doing the negotiation with IND themselves, or using some kind of expert firm to do it for them; make absolutely sure they are aware of you and that they should apply for your visa at the same time; if they don't, you'll be at least 3 months behind her as her visa will be amazingly quick (days), while yours is in the pile with the rest of us.

Learn Dutch, it's very important.  You may think that because you speak Afrikaans that everyone will understand you.  The thing about that language is it's a mixture of English, Dutch, German and African tribal languages as they were spoken > 200 years ago and the language hasn't really developed since.  Many Dutch people will understand you if you speak to them slowly and manage to hide your accent, and socially, it doesn't really matter; but to get a customer-facing job it's difficult; the legal profession, in particular, is all about clear communication of relative facts.  You'll be competing with local Dutch people who don't have that issue.

If you have any further specific questions, please come back to us.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

"Bizarrely, you could work as a Legal Advisor in the Netherlands with no qualifications at all."

No you cannot! You will need a Dutch education for that.
So first you must try to get your education recognised and I doubt that they will.
Re-education is the only way forward and of course learn to speak proper Dutch.

Update:
For individuals from outside the EU their education is not recognised in the Netherlands.
Advocaten Orde Nederland

Ramses K. wrote:

"Bizarrely, you could work as a Legal Advisor in the Netherlands with no qualifications at all."

No you cannot! You will need a Dutch education for that.

Advocaten Orde Nederland

Did you read the link I gave where that came from?  More importantly, there is a big difference between a rechtskundig adviseur (for which you need no qualifications and is what I said) and an advocaat, which I think you're referring to (and I didn't say).  The link I supplied then goes on to explain it in great detail.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Yes I did, but even a rechtskundig adviseur needs proper education. There is no way in the Netherlands you can do that job without the needed papers.