Short answer. No. A lawyer cannot buy the property or rights that are the object of a case he takes part in by virtue of his profession. The Civil Code extends its prohibition on court officers buying litigated property to lawyers handling the very litigation the property is involved in.
What the law says
this prohibition includes the act of acquiring by assignment and shall apply to lawyers, with respect to the property and rights which may be the object of any litigation in which they may take part by virtue of their profession
Civil Code, Article 1491 — Persons Who Cannot Buy. Read the full provision →
Lawyers are expressly named
Article 1491 lists people who cannot acquire by purchase property in specified situations, and it does not stop at judges and court personnel. It states that the prohibition includes the act of acquiring by assignment and shall apply to lawyers, with respect to the property and rights which may be the object of any litigation in which they may take part by virtue of their profession. So a lawyer is squarely covered. The ban is not limited to a direct sale, either; it expressly catches acquisition by assignment, closing an easy detour. As with the other disqualified persons, a lawyer also cannot sidestep it by buying through someone else acting on their behalf.
Tied to the property in the lawyer's own case
The restriction is specific, not a blanket ban on a lawyer ever buying real estate. What a lawyer cannot acquire is the property and rights which may be the object of any litigation in which they may take part by virtue of their profession. Two elements have to line up: the thing must be the subject of a litigation, and the lawyer must be taking part in that very litigation as counsel. Property unconnected to any case the lawyer is handling is outside this particular prohibition. It is the professional involvement in the dispute over that property that creates the disqualification.
Why the law forbids it
The rule guards the trust at the centre of the lawyer-client relationship. A lawyer is supposed to serve the client's interest in the litigation wholeheartedly; being allowed to buy the disputed property would set up a direct clash between the lawyer's own desire to acquire it cheaply and the duty to advance the client's claim to it. The prohibition removes that temptation at the root by simply forbidding the purchase, rather than trying to police the lawyer's motives case by case. It is part of the broader concern in this article with people buying what their office or role puts within their reach.
The effect of a purchase in breach
Because the prohibition protects an interest the law regards as fundamental, a purchase that violates it is highly vulnerable to challenge and is not something the parties can simply validate by agreement. The disqualification is linked to the lawyer's participation in the litigation over the property, so the analysis turns on when and how the lawyer came to acquire it. If you are a client, an opposing party, or a buyer confronted with a lawyer purchasing property caught up in a case, that is a situation to have examined closely. A lawyer can assess whether the acquisition falls within the ban.