About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

2009 J. Prof. Law. 13 (2009)
Thoughts on the Compatibility of Recent U.K. and Australian Reforms with U.S. Traditions in Regulating Law Practice

handle is hein.journals/profeslwr2009 and id is 15 raw text is: Thoughts on the Compatibility of Recent U.K. and Australian Reforms with U.S. Traditions in Regulating Law Practice Ted Schneyer* Introduction For most of the Twentieth Century, law practice in the United States was pri- marily regulated by the state supreme courts working in tandem with the ABA and state and local bar associations' in a regime lawyers call professional self- regulation.2 But changes in law practice and its regulation since the 1970s have *Milton 0. Riepe Professor of Law, James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona. An early draft of this article was prepared for a symposium that was held for the Conference of Chief Justices of the States in Chicago on May 26-27, 2009 and cosponsored by the ABA's Center for Professional Responsibility and Standing Committee on Professional Discipline and the Georgetown Center for the Study of the Legal Profession. The program, entitled The Future Is Here: Globalization and the Regulation of the Legal Profession, focused on recent global developments that could impact the authority of the state supreme courts over the U.S. legal profession. I am grateful to the George- town Center for a grant that enabled me to conduct the research for this and a second, more theoreti- cal article. This article considers whether certain recent regulatory reforms in the U.K. and Australia could be adopted in the U.S. in a manner that is compatible with the traditional self-regulatory re- gimes that operate under the auspices of the high state courts. The second article, to be published in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, focuses on (1) the desirability of importing additional U.K. and Australian reforms that permit lawyers to practice in multidisciplinary firms and law firms owned by nonlawyers, (2) the close attention that regulatory theory received in the development of the U.K. and Australian reforms, and (3) the possible implications of the reforms for the ability of the orga- nized bar to continue to work effectively to preserve the independence of the legal profession. 1. I will refer to these associations as the mainstream bar to distinguish them from the many associations that are now organized by specialty field rather than locale. 2. Court-adopted legal ethics codes based heavily on rules formulated by the ABA, and a court-supervised disciplinary process in which some administrative responsibilities may be delegated to the bar, are central features of the regime. Although it is a misnomer, lawyers presumably call the regime self-regulation because the courts that oversee it (here referred to collectively as state supreme courts) consist solely of lawyers and have relied heavily over the years on the mainstream bar's support and regulatory assistance. But even in common law countries where legislatures rather than courts hold sway, the bar has traditionally played a substantial role. By legislative delegation in Ontario, for example, the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) for many years played the primary role in setting standards for law practice, bar admission, and legal education, administered the bar ad- missions and disciplinary processes, and ran its own law school. Interestingly, when Herbert Harley of the American Judicature Society began in the 1910s to promote state bar unification (i.e., official mandatory-membership associations) as a device for placing regulatory authority in the hands of the bar, he touted the LSUC as a model. See Herbert Harley, A Lawyer's Trust, 29 J. AM. JUDICATURE Soc'Y 50, 52-54 (1945) (reprinting a speech Harley delivered to a county bar association in 1914).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most