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4 Legal Ethics 1 (2001)

handle is hein.journals/lethics4 and id is 1 raw text is: Legal Ethics, Volume 4, No. 1 Editorial KIM ECONOMIDES AND JULIAN WEBB New Horizons for Professional Regulation Our previous issue took stock of some recent developments and reviewed empirical research on current practice in the field of professional regulation. In this issue we con- tinue to explore this regulatory theme but at a different level and within an altogether different time frame. Instead of looking at how individual lawyers within different prac- tice settings are now interpreting conflicts of interest or the commitment to pro bono our contributors peer into the future to examine at a more macro level the latest strategic thinking taking place within institutions-whether these be professional bodies, law firms or law schools-which is likely to determine the collective responsibilities of the legal pro- fession. Lord Justice Potter's article-earlier versions of which were presented in London last summer to audiences at Gresham College and the American Bar Association (ABA) Conference-investigates the ethical pressures and moral dilemmas confronting a profes- sion in transition. This is a powerful and important statement whose central message should be heard by a wider audience and all those concerned about current trends threat- ening lawyers' professional responsibility. The widespread tendency toward commerciali- sation and the implications this holds for professional ethics and values are examined, as are the challenges presented by an intrusive modern press placing lawyers under new pres- sures and rendering current codes of conduct obsolete or irrelevant. Lord Justice Potter concludes that a more robust legal education is required to support ethical lawyering and that the professional bodies need to review their codes of conduct. Professor David Sugarman responded to these points at the ABA Colloquium and his observations are also reproduced here. He suggests there is a need for greater interdisciplinary collaboration and the articulation of guiding principles for regulation and reform. We would agree with this and add that the debates between legal practitioners, policy-makers and academics on pro- fessional responsibility could be further enhanced by international comparisons (see the Discussion Forum infra) and insights gleaned from foreign experience. In this regard our third contributor, Professor Elizabeth Chambliss of Harvard Law School, presents an informative account of how new structures such as multidisciplinarN partnerships are being regulated in the US. This paper can also be seen as an important contribution to the growing body of socio-legal scholarship which is exploring the poten- tial for new forms and structures for regulating the legal professions-including Parker's work on deliberative accountability and Webb and Nicolson's work on reflexive or

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