This article analyses the regulatory handbooks produced by the new regulators for solicitors and barristers, the main legal professions in England and Wales, following the Legal Services Act 2007. It focuses on the new codes of conduct and the 10 high-level regulatory standards that are a feature of each handbook. The article examines the ways in which key interests have been dealt with in the handbooks from the perspective of the historical narratives of the legal professions and (...) their publications, including their previous codes of conduct. It is found that the barristers’ and solicitors’ codes project different ethical orientations towards the supposedly universal ‘standard conception of the lawyer’s role’ based on the principles of neutrality and partisanship. The origins, meaning and significance of the high-level standards are considered. They are found not to reflect the content of the codes of conduct or to communicate cherished elements of the professions’ historical narratives. It is argued that this is problematic in terms of the professional functions of regulation, education and communication. (shrink)

In countries outside the developed world, although writers have written commentaries on specific legal codes, very little attention has been given to legal writing which has focused specifically on the ethics of the legal profession. This book makes a special contribution in that regard providing, as it does, a comparative study of prevailing efforts to enhance ethical standards in a profession potentially in crisis and under much public scrutiny. Countries which have been examined include the (...) UK, the US, Canada, South Africa, and countries in the Pacific, South East Asia and the Caribbean. Valuable guidance and learning are provided on such topical issues as wasted costs orders, conflicts of interests, legal and judicial codes, confidentiality, privilege and the ethics of the criminal process, where the jury system comes in for critical evaluation. This book will be a valuable text on the ethics and status of the profession. It will be of considerable interest to law students, practitioners and legal academics, Bar Associations, Attorneys-General and Directors of Public Prosecutions as well as members of the judiciary. (shrink)

The paper deals with the critical questioning of the relation between legitimate imposed legal obligations and the rights to refuse these obligations based on the right of the freedom of conscience, i.e. conscientious objection. The critical perspective that is applied to conduct the questioning is a legal profession because, in Croatian legal culture, there is no articulated answer to the question of how to reconcile these two obligations within the legal profession. The paper draws (...) on the comprehension of John Rawls’s theory of conscientious objection since it is a systematic analysis of justice that shall submit subjective understanding of the good to the principle of right. In practice, the focus is on the grounds for acknowledging conscientious objection among lawyers as well on the obstacles to exercising this right. (shrink)

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In recent years, more and more Chinese women have joined the legal profession and have made remarkable achievements in this field. Gender stereotypes, however, which involve a deep-rooted social concept, have seriously hindered Chinese women’s development in the legal profession and have had a profound and adverse impact on women’s career progression. Based on the statistical data in the public domain as well as the ethnographic data drawn from interviews with legal professionals and informal conversations (...) with lawyers known to the principal author, this paper focuses on women in the Chinese legal profession, identifies the causes of women’s dilemmas in their career development as well as the impact of gender stereotyping on them within the legal profession in order to provide some insights on improving gender equality in China. According to the authors, the causes of gender stereotypes in China are diverse: Existing legal institutions promote and maintain such stereotyping practices; traditional gender concepts enter into and disseminated in people’s thoughts; the theory of biological determinism in the field of science misleads the general public; and the legal system constructs women’s status as workers and mothers. In view of this, it is necessary to achieve substantive equality in China’s legal profession by weakening men’s domination of the legal profession, improving the structure and ideology of relevant institutions and policies in offering women more incentives for career development, and also changing women’s understanding of and efforts against biased gender stereotypes. This will help break down China’s gender stereotypes, promote gender equality in the legal profession, and address the dilemma of women’s legal career development. (shrink)

Currently, most legal professions are not representative of the communities which they serve. They do not proportionally include diverse members of the community, nor ensure there are diverse practitioners represented in all areas of practice and at senior levels. This impacts on access to justice, a key premise of the law and legal system. One step to make the legal profession more diverse is for law schools to ensure that diverse law students are both admitted and (...) enabled to succeed in their law degrees. While transition to university by diverse students has been analysed over the last 20 years, there remains a disjunct, with students’ cultural capital not being recognised, and students being expected to assimilate into the university, rather than their law studies moulding around them. Using a theoretical model of ‘transition as becoming’, this article analyses first-year law students at Western Sydney University Australia and their responses to a reflection survey. The study identified three key factors which enhance diverse law students’ success: recognising the family, work and caring responsibilities of students; enhancing peer support; and making study expectations explicit. In this way, the curriculum can become a vehicle for ensuring successful transition to law study by diverse students. (shrink)

Lawyers in many jurisdictions are ageing, and yet there is little information concerning the age profile of the legal profession. This paper presents the first consideration of the age profile of lawyers outside of the US, showing that Australian lawyers are ageing and delaying retirement. These findings have serious implications. Problems associated with a growing proportion of older lawyers include an increasing risk of lawyers suffering from age-related cognitive and physical impairment, and the related rise of complaints and (...) malpractice claims against older lawyers. It is also clear that the Australian legal profession is unprepared to address these problems. The legal profession has ignored important gender-specific implications of ageing, such as female lawyers experiencing menopause and the lower savings of female lawyers moving into retirement. Regulatory regimes have not considered the impact of the profession's ageing profile, and there is no mandatory reporting of lawyers suffering from age-related impairment or provisions should a lawyer die. The profession also has not provided strategies to positively transition lawyers into retirement, and there is a lack of flexible working arrangements and succession planning, especially in firms located outside urban centres. (shrink)

Lawyers in many jurisdictions are ageing, and yet there is little information concerning the age profile of the legal profession. This paper presents the first consideration of the age profile of lawyers outside of the US, showing that Australian lawyers are ageing and delaying retirement. These findings have serious implications. Problems associated with a growing proportion of older lawyers include an increasing risk of lawyers suffering from age-related cognitive and physical impairment, and the related rise of complaints and (...) malpractice claims against older lawyers. It is also clear that the Australian legal profession is unprepared to address these problems. The legal profession has ignored important gender-specific implications of ageing, such as female lawyers experiencing menopause and the lower savings of female lawyers moving into retirement. Regulatory regimes have not considered the impact of the profession's ageing profile, and there is no mandatory reporting of lawyers suffering from age-related impairment or provisions should a lawyer die. The profession also has not provided strategies to positively transition lawyers into retirement, and there is a lack of flexible working arrangements and succession planning, especially in firms located outside urban centres. (shrink)

Legal concepts and notions are deeply affected by religions, ethics, philosophy and the culture of a particular nation. As Friedman Comparing legal cultures, Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1997, p. 34) highlights, understanding legal culture is a crucial factor as it both affects their translation and interpretation and consequently has an impact on the application of law. This increases in importance, for example, in the context of the principle of mutual trust and recognition of judgments assumed by the European Union (...) as the cornerstone of judicial co-operation in the European Union, which would not be possible without the trust in each other’s justice system and the respect for the different legal systems and traditions of the Member States. In that vein, ‘the Third Space’, where legal concepts and notions of multiple origins meet and where their meanings are negotiated, transformed, translated and integrated into various socio-political and cultural contexts has acquired an immense significance. Although there may be natural similarities between legal professions in the European Union, they could differ quite substantially as they are deeply rooted in the history and societal evolution of a country; therefore, they are generally regulated at a national, not a European level. In light of the above, the author intends to perform an in-depth analysis of key terminology in the field of names of legal professions which exist in the Member States of the European Union. The author focuses on the terms which refer to the legal profession of lawyers as they might pose obstacles in translation and interpretation due to different functions and roles these legal professionals play in their legal systems or due to the lack of their equivalents in other legal systems. The terminology is compared to present similarities and differences in their meaning, particularly putting some emphasis on socio-political and cultural contexts. The research methods encompass the analysis of relevant literature and the terminological analysis of the research material, which includes the information on legal professions provided by particular Member States on the European e-Justice portal and relevant national regulations in that respect. Finally, the author draws the conclusion that a thorough analysis of the functions and roles of a particular legal profession in socio-political and cultural contexts is required before the translation and interpretation of the term is provided as it helps to avoid ambiguity and makes legal communication precise. (shrink)

In the past decade, members of the legal profession in Canada and other common law jurisdictions, including England and the United States, have directly engaged the question of how to retain women in private practice environments. As a result, the 'retention of women' discourse has emerged as a dominant lens through which issues of gender equity in the legal profession are identified and analysed. The goal of this article is to build upon existing critiques of the (...) 'retention of women' discourse by asking what insights Queer theory might bring to ongoing debates about the 'retention of women' in the legal profession. The analysis charts the rise of the 'retention of women' issue in Canada and other common law jurisdictions and connects the 'retention of women' discourse with Queer legal theory. Drawing on select tenets of Queer theory, the article then considers how the 'retention of women? debate reconstitutes conventional notions of lawyer professionalism and recasts the boundaries of 'insider' and 'outsider' lawyers. The article concludes, first, that Queer theory is a useful theoretical lens though which discussions about the 'retention of women' in the discourse of legal professionalism can be meaningfully examined, and, second, that a Queer theory lens reveals fundamental limitations of existing approaches to the 'retention of women' question in the common law world. (shrink)

For nearly two centuries, Kronman argues, the aspirations of American lawyers were shaped by their allegiance to a distinctive ideal of professional excellence. In the last generation, however, this ideal has failed, undermining the identity of lawyers as a group and making it unclear to those in the profession what it means for them personally to have chosen a life in the law.

ABSTRACTEngland and Australia have abandoned self-regulation of the legal profession, yet Canadian law societies continue to function on this basis. This article argues that the self-regulatory mod...

ABSTRACTThis essay aims to contribute robust grounds to question the Susskinds’ influential, consequentialist logic when it comes to the legitimacy of automation within the legal profession. It does so by questioning their minimalist understanding of the professions. If it is our commitment to moral equality that is at stake every time lawyers hail the specific vulnerability inherent in their professional relationship, the case for wholesale automation is turned on its head. One can no longer assume that, as a (...) rule, wholesale automation is both legitimate and desirable, provided it improves the quality and accessibility of legal services. The assumption, instead, is firmly in favour of designing systems that better enable legal professionals to live up to their specific responsibility. The rest of the essay outlines key challenges in the design of such profession-specific, ‘ethics aware’ decision-support systems. (shrink)

In recent years the issue of wellbeing has moved centre stage across jurisdictions within a wide range of debates relating to economic, cultural and political changes associated with neoliberalism. This is the backdrop against which the legal profession has itself begun to pay increasing attention to the issue of wellbeing in law. This article explores an aspect of this debate that has tended to be neglected thus far, namely the relationship between the neoliberal corporatisation of universities, gender and (...) questions of wellbeing in the legal profession and law schools. It assesses the meaning of wellbeing in the context of law and considers changes in universities that, it is argued, have reshaped understandings of the academic subject and academic labour in ways that have potential implications for this debate around wellbeing in law. Focusing on gendered dimensions of these shifts, the article argues that the growing literature around wellbeing raises significant questions about legal ethics, values and gender equity in law, as well as about legal professionalism and the place and purpose of legal education and research. Arguing against an individualising logic that would depoliticise personal experience, the paper suggests a complex re-gendering of social relations is having contradictory implications for understanding these contemporary debates around wellbeing, equality and diversity in law. (shrink)

This collection of original essays by leading and emerging scholars in the field examines the history, conditions, organization, and strategies of pro bono lawyering. Private Lawyers and the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal Profession traces the rise and impact of the American Bar Association's campaign to hold lawyers accountable for a commitment to public service and to encourage public service within law schools. Combining empirical legal research with reflections by practitioners and (...) theorists about the meaning and practice of pro bono legal work, this collection of essays interrogates the public service ideals that are inscribed within the legal profession and places these ideals within a broader social, economic, ideological, and normative context. Particular attention is paid to the factors that explain why lawyers engage in pro bono work and the ways in which their views of pro bono are mediated by the institutional context of their legal practice. The book also explores the concept of "public" in public service and compares pro bono as a means of delivering legal services with other mechanisms such as state funding. Collectively, these essays investigate the evolving role of pro bono in the legal profession and in law schools, the relationship between pro bono ideals and pro bono in practice, the way that pro bono is shaped by external forces beyond the individual practitioner, and the multi-faceted nature of legal professionalism as expressed through pro bono practice. (shrink)

Technology is changing the world in which we live and this includes the legal profession. This change has been remarked from many different standpoints. However, as technology is increasingly integrated into the fabric of legal practice, the very act of lawyering is likely to change and this will give rise to very important ethical questions.

The problem of gender equality among lawyers has been a subject of significant research, study and action across the globe. It is well known that despite women's entrance into law school in relatively equal numbers to men over the past few decades, they remain significantly under-represented in positions of leadership and power across sectors of the legal profession. Progress has come to a standstill, making this a particularly critical time to examine the ways we conceptualise the problem and (...) rethink the solutions. The legal profession, as a gatekeeper of equality and as an institution committed to the preservation of rights, should be emblematic of gender equality. Responsibility for addressing the problematic gender dynamics is something that lies with the entire profession and should be framed as a matter of ethics. To date, the conversation on this issue has been relatively insular and this essay argues for an expansion of this conversation to include the entire bar. Toward this end, this essay suggests that there are new ways to think about pathways to gender equality by expanding the boundaries that have defined the problem. First, it has been defined in a way that focuses almost exclusively on those already engaged in the practice of law, often at the highest echelons of practice to the exclusion of other sectors, especially legal education. Second, the existing movement has almost unilaterally focused on the structural impediments within the legal system or the characteristics of law practice itself that exist as roadblocks to women, ignoring significant barriers that are not necessarily unique to women lawyers but impede the progress of women generally. The movement also often fails to extend beyond geographic borders of a particular country, thereby eliminating the potential for a global conversation. In crafting solutions, there has been little acknowledgement of the role of legal education. (shrink)

Examining the social revolutions in France, the United States, and England during industrialization this book looks at the different ways in which social upheaval has prompted radical divergences in the organisation and regulation of the legal profession.

Law firms, bars and lawyers associations qualify as ‘enterprises’ in the sense of all international CSR norms such as the UN Global Compact, the UN Guiding Principles, the OECD Guidelines for Multi...

Volume 21, Issue 1, July 2018, Page 89-92.

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ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to examine questions about the role and responsibilities of transaction lawyers working in the financial sector that, it is argued here, deserve closer scrutiny than they have hitherto received since the banking and economic crisis of 2008. It considers the manner in which the conduct of such lawyers in the pre-crisis financial markets may have played a particular role in contributing to the sources of latent risk that bore systemic fruit in 2008. (...) It poses the question, ‘Could they have acted differently?’. The first section concludes that there are strong and persuasive arguments both for and against reorienting the responsibilities of the transaction lawyer to include some obligation to take account of the risk to the financial system which the transactions they are conducting for their clients may pose. Secondly, this paper explores ways in which, nonetheless, financial sector lawyers could – and indeed should – be expected to play a part... (shrink)