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Stephen, Frank H.; Love, James H.; Rickman, Neil --- "Regulation of the Legal Profession" [2012] ELECD 447; in Van den Bergh, J. Roger; Pacces, M. Alessio (eds), "Regulation and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Regulation and Economics

Editor(s): Van den Bergh, J. Roger; Pacces, M. Alessio

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847203434

Section: Chapter 15

Section Title: Regulation of the Legal Profession

Author(s): Stephen, Frank H.; Love, James H.; Rickman, Neil

Number of pages: 31

Extract:

15 Regulation of the legal profession
Frank H. Stephen, James H. Love and Neil
Rickman



1. INTRODUCTION

In most jurisdictions one or more of the following is regulated in some
manner:

a. the provision of advice about the law for financial reward;
b. the use of specific professional titles indicating expertise in legal matters;
c. the right to appear on behalf of one of the parties before the courts.

Whilst ultimately governed by statute and subject to oversight by some public
official (judge, civil servant or politician), this regulation is frequently
enforced and delimited by the profession itself (see further below). This chap-
ter reviews the contribution which economists, and others using economic
modes of reasoning, have made to the analysis of such regulatory regimes. We
begin by rehearsing the traditional cartel argument against self-regulation and
its links with the modern private interest theory of regulation via capture
theory. This is contrasted with the market failure view of regulation which in
the context of the professions focuses on the information asymmetry between
the professional and the client. There is then a brief discussion of the merits of
self-regulation and inter-profession competition before turning to an examina-
tion of the instruments by which professional regulation is exercised: control
of entry, control of advertising or other means of competition, control of fee
levels, control of fee contracts and control of organisational form. In this
context we give prominence to recent empirical studies which test the effects
of these regulatory ...