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Abstract:
Corporate insolvency and bankruptcy have given rise to new markets, including global ones, in which lawyers have been key players. This paper examines the role of lawyers in informal restructuring through an analysis of the London Approach and the rise of the distressed debt market.

bankruptcy, insolvency, law firms, lawyers, globalization, london approach, distressed debt, vulture funds

Abstract:
A question often posed but rarely satisfactorily answered is: what do lawyers do? In this paper we take the work of real estate finance lawyers and examine how they structure transactions within the cross-border context. For the analysis the key term is structure as it is this that determines the success or failure of a transaction. This places the lawyer in an analogous position to the architect in a construction project. We provide examples of transactions and how they are articulated. This paper is co-authored by a practitioner and an academic.

lawyer-client, banks, lawyers, transactions, structure

Abstract:
With the growth of globalization, the role of the state has diminished and more of its legal activities are being taken over by other institutions. This chapter examines the role of law firms and credit rating agencies in securitizations.

securitization, globalisation, globalization, lawyers, investment banks, corporate, regulation, epistemic practices, capital markets, credit rating agencies

Abstract:
Globalization is having profound effects on the practice and the organization of law. In the field of cross-border transactions the role of the state and its legal system has diminished such that private ordering through contracting is now the key mode of lawmaking. The vast majority of private ordering is undertaken by large law firms with international practices. Moreover, these law firms tend to adopt Anglo-American common law principles when putting together transactions. Yet within Europe there is competition from the law firms of the civil law countries, which are becoming adept at identifying markets not fully taken over by the American and English firms. But in order to understand the roles of lawyers in such cross-border transactions, we start from Abel and Lewis' question: what is that lawyers do? By using a number of case studies of transactions and disputes, we attempt to theorize how it is that lawyers create enabling and support structures for transnational business. We draw on Luhmann's ideas of stabilization of expectations and Gilson's depiction of lawyers as transaction cost engineers to help explain our findings.

lawyers, Luhmann, Gilson, cross-border, globalization, law firms

Abstract:
The paper presents the historical arguments that led to the Clementi review of the legal profession and its culmination in the Legal Services Act 2007. There were two strands: one based on consumerism (too many complaints about lawyers' services); the other based on a sustained investigation by the competition authorities into professions' restrictive practices (anti-competitive unless proved in the public interest). These led to the abandonment of traditional forms of organization for lawyers' practices (alternative business structures) and the imposition of a new regulatory structure for the profession (oversight and frontline regulators).

In the second part of the paper I examine the trends in lawyers' practices as currently pursued and as envisaged by the Act as aligned with our conceptions of professionalism. Using two hypotheticals: Tesco Law, and Goldman Sachs Skadden, I chart a move from professionalism to deskilling and proletarianization in the legal profession, not unlike that which existed in the 19th century.

This dystopian view, which is essentially a top down conception of the legal industry, is contrasted with a more optimistic view based on the changes in the idealization of careers and life as represented by Generation Y. This is augmented by the changing nature of work, ie, post-Fordist, within organizations which in a number of ways escapes control and measurement because the distinctions between production and consumption, work and leisure allied with distributed network forms of production blur the boundaries that we have taken for granted. In contrast to the socio-economic approaches, I argue that we must examine conceptions of career, inclusion and exclusion, vocation, and community in order to understand how the professions will adapt to the postmodern condition.

Clementi, legal profession, lawyers

Abstract:
International large law firms are vital to the globalization of business transactions. Their role is generally ignored however. This paper analyzes their role using a theoretical gloss derived from Luhmann and the Jesuits. Various examples of transactional work are presented to illustrate the sanctification role.

lawyers, law firms, legal profession, globalization, jesuits, international business

Abstract:
The UK spends more per capita on legal aid than any other country in the world, yet appears to reap little benefit from the expenditure in terms of reduction of criminality or disputes. Much of the drive towards spending seems to derive from lawyer generated demand. The paper examines possible ways of improving results and reducing expenditures by looking at examples from other countries.

legal aid, law firms, lawyers

Abstract:
To what extent in the age of globalization is it possible to talk of a global legal ethics? The example of the International Bar Association is examined.

ethics, lawyers, globalization, law firms

Abstract:
The industrialization of legal practice is leading to an increased tension between professionalism and business as varieties of the prevailing ethos in large law firms. Using historical and biographical data of law firms this tension is examined with the result that professionalism is, on the legal profession's own terms, dying out. Only in rare niche, smaller firms can residues of professionalism be located.

law firms, legal profession, history, biography, professionalism, profession

Abstract:
The paper argues that in order to interpret meaningfully the complexity and contingency of law and society, then ethnography is the prime method that is able to achieve this.

ethnography, sociolegal, barristers clerks, lawyers, law firms, research

Abstract:
The English legal profession is facing radical changes to the ways it educates its novices from the Training Framework Review. The paper examines this in three parts.

1. The structure and drivers of the TFR

2. The TFR is examined in the context of the political economy of higher education

3. The potential effects of the TFR are examined in the context of professionalism and deprofessionalization.

professions, lawyers, legal education, postmodern, flexibilisation, MDP, capitalism

Abstract:
An analysis of how large law firms became part of the globalization process at the end of the 20th century. The paper looks at how globalization and culture influence each other and how professional services are treated. It examines what law firms do in globalization and how the rise of the MDP was initially perceived as a challenge to the hegemony of the law firm. The paper has an enduring interest as the UK Clementi review of legal services revives many of the hopes and fears present at that time.

Globalization, lawyers, MDP, legal profession

Abstract:
Globalization is forcing various groups to come together to create a system of private ordering. Capital markets is used as an example of the interaction of elite law firms, investment banks.

globalisation, capital markets, investment banks, law firms

Abstract:
Barristers typically rely on a type of consigliere called the barrister's clerk who carries out a number of tasks for them. Clerks manage their time through diary management (eg. when they have to be in court); clerks negotiate their fees; and clerks counsel them on how their careers should be structured (eg. what kind of law to specialize in, when to become a Queen's Counsel). At one time clerks would receive a percentage of the barrister's fees for this work.

Nowadays they are mostly salaried. Moreover, the growth of technology has simplified some tasks, such as listing cases in court which can by done through the internet. However, marketing, fixing fees, and counseling careers still endures.

Using Mary Douglas' idea of taboo, I argue that the clerk defines the dividing line between the sacred area of the law and the profane world of money and clients. The class divisions further emphasize this. Clerks are generally working class compared to the middle-class barrister.

Both sides are uneasy about the relationship, but as long as the current structure of the Bar exists, the need for this moral division of labor will persist.

barristers, clerks, bar, lawyers, legal profession

Abstract:
The rise of the large global law firm is analyzed. The analysis covers the reach of large law firms, their different types of work, and the ways in which they construct legal arrangements to enable transnational business. This entails looking at what lawyers actually do. Professionalism and issues of multidisciplinary practice are also considered.

large law firms, globalization, transnational, international, lawyers

Abstract:
Legal education has begun to become a global phenomenon. US and UK law schools in particular portray themselves as the tribunes of the new legal educative imperialism. The example of NYU's Global Law School is used as an example to illustrate these new trends.

legal education, globalization, law schools

Abstract:
(Revised May 2009) The relationship between law firms and banks has a long history. Bankers and lawyers constantly work together on transactions so that their relationships are deep and enduring. Through the use of ethnography and interviews this paper examines this relationship and that of the lawyer and client. Because of the unusually tight relationship between bankers and lawyers, the lawyer-client relationship needs to be reconstituted. It is not possible to perceive it as merely a dyadic relationship; it is now multi-polar. Even though clients may be sophisticated repeat players, clients are caught up in a relationship where they will always be secondary to the primary relationship of banker and lawyer.

lawyer-client, banks, lawyers, transactions

Abstract:
With the inception of the Legal Services Act 2007 following the Clementi Report on new ways of providing legal services in the UK, the Bar is moving to alter the way it practices. Traditionally, the Bar has been a referral profession relying on solicitors and other professionals to instruct barristers when legal opinions or advocacy is sought. In recent years the Bar has attempted to open the barristers' profession to more direct access from clients thus bypassing solicitors.

This has had a mixed reaction among barristers and barristers' clerks. Some see it as the route to a modern diverse profession while others see it as potentially harming these traditional relationships between barrister and solicitor that have been built up over many years. Among solicitors this has been met by their own moves to become advocates in the higher courts.

The report presents findings from research carried out among barristers, clerks, chambers chief executives, and users. Data were collected via interview, survey, and documentary sources. It shows that barristers represent value for money for clients because of lower overheads than solicitors. But the current rules in place that regulate how barristers carry out direct access work do more to hinder than encourage users.

The report concludes that since the Legal Services Act will permit "alternative business structures" which will directly compete with barristers, and solicitors, an expansion of direct access work is one way of countering the effects of these changes.

barristers, Clementi, direct, access, clients, solicitors, lawyers

Abstract:
The Maxwell bankruptcy was the first big international insolvency, one that moved into primary proceedings simultaneously in London and New York. This set up a battle between British administration and US Chapter 11. The intervention by certain individuals who had thought about the consequences of such bankruptcies, including lawyers and judges, enabled a private system of law to emerge to handle these incommensurable systems.

globalization, bankruptcy, insolvency, chapter 11, administration, lawyers, accountants

Abstract:
The paper examines differences between collegial partnerships and managed partnership businesses. It uses ethnographic evidence from a study of a large law firm in Chicago and interview data from partners in City of London large law firms. It shows that MPB is fast becoming the norm for organizing law practices and that bureaucratic managerialism is helping to turn law firms into highly fissionable entities.

professions, lawyers, law firms, US, UK, bureaucracy

Abstract:
Review essay of Gillian Tett's 2009 book, "Fool's Gold" on the history and causes of the present financial crisis.

derivatives, regulation, finance, lawyers, crisis

Abstract:
Apparently naive, but in fact not, is the question: What do lawyers do? Many scholars assume the central role of the lawyer is that of the advocate, but among lawyers working in law firms advocacy consumes little of their time. Similarly, the term 'lawyer' provides hardly any meaning in itself. The research presented here is based on a participant-observation study of a corporate law firm. The central thesis proposed, in the light of case studies of the selling of a shopping mall and the arranging of a bank loan, is that business lawyers are engaged in managing uncertainty for both their clients and themselves. Managing uncertainty is accomplished through interaction rather than appeals to the law.

business, lawyers, clients, law firms

Abstract:
This article considers the institutional dimensions of professionalism and the legal profession's struggle with the challenges of post-modernity. An aspect of this is the Law Society's Training Framework Review (TFR) which promises changes to solicitors' education from 'cradle to grave'. The first part of the article analyses the structure and drivers of the TFR, their origins, and how they will be articulated. Secondly, the TFR is considered in the context of the political economy of higher education and its role in the new capitalism. Finally, we examine the potential effects of the TFR for the legal profession in the context of increasing practice segmentation and the threat of deprofessionalization, and also for the Law Society itself, whether it can retain a key role in the life course of the legal profession.

Abstract:
Modernity unsettles professional certainties. For four centuries the Bar has enjoyed many privileges (Prest 1986) but there has been a hollowing out of its professional core as its reserved areas have come under threat. The gradual erosion of the referral aspects of barristers’ relationships with solicitors and others exposes barristers to the contingencies of the market in a raw form not usually experienced. The rising intervention of the state into the lawyer-client relationship through the control of the legal aid budget is accelerating these moves. These are moves to bureaucratic control and potential proletarianization (Larson 1977: 232). The Bar is losing its grip on its professional project. Or is it? Muzio and Ackroyd (2008: 49) argue we are not observing the end of professionalism but rather various defensive manoeuvres by professionals to maintain their privileges.

How does the rise in direct access work fit with the changes in the Bar? In part it has to do with what Boon and Levin (2008: 77) described as “'he legal services market has a multitude of sites in which different norms proliferate.' Barristers occupy many positions outside traditional private practice. They are in business, government, the Crown Prosecution Service, and even inside solicitors’ firms. And when we add to the mix an increasing diversity of professional members in gender and ethnicity, common cultural values change and may not hold. This is reinforced by the division in work at the Bar between those who largely undertake publicly aided work and those who act for private clients. Barristers paid by the state operate under considerable control in terms of what they can do and what they can charge for their labour. No equivalent constraints fall on private client practitioners: they function within the market. Further controls are imposed by chambers arrangements which are becoming more corporate in focus. Chambers are increasingly specialized in their practice areas. They target potential lateral hires, including groups of practitioners, and establish business targets, all of which compromises the ethic of individuality espoused in the Bar.

Although the fusion of barristers and solicitors is unlikely to happen, the introduction of Legal Disciplinary Partnerships in 2009 has opened up the organization possibility for the conjoining of the two. And when alternative business structures make themselves known, any conventional arrangements might begin to fail. Alternative business structures will seriously affect numbers and structures within the legal profession and increase the employed section of the legal profession. We suggested that up to a thousand law firms could fail in competition with supermarkets and other legal service providers. Barristers too will be affected.

With these eventualities direct access work grants the possibility of holding onto traditional values and procedures. Prest (1986) is clear that the settling of the referral structure of the Bar did not come into being until the 19th century, so that an earlier paradigm of professionalism for the Bar encompassed direct relations with clients. Attorneys and solicitors stepped in when geography made it difficult for clients. Direct access recaptures these pre-modern ideals of working. But perhaps of more significance is that barristers can situate themselves more centrally in the market through doing direct access work. Their potential for control over their work and professional relationships is enhanced.

Bar, barristers, clients, direct access

Abstract:
This report presents the findings of a comparative review of international approaches to the provision of legal aid to indigent persons involved in criminal cases. Its intent is to provide some insight into the reasons the UK's expenditure on criminal legal aid far exceeds that of any other country in the world.

legal aid, Lord Carter Review, criminal legal aid

Abstract:
This report explores lawyers' perceptions surrounding the provision of advocacy services. It is based on a community wide study of lawyers in London consisting in two parts: first, in-depth interviews with solicitors and barristers active in the corporate field, immigration, personal injury and criminal defence; secondly, a survey of London solicitors and barristers, based on telephone interviews. Overall, this report presents the results of the first ever qualitative study in this area.

Advocacy Services

Abstract:
A market for litigation for solicitor-advocates in competition with barristers was introduced by the British government. The take-up by solicitors of these new rights of audience in the higher courts was less than expected. This paper examines four fields of practice - corporate, criminal defence, personal injury, and immigration - and shows how the market cannot be treated as a uniform field and that each field has its own culture that might be receptive or not to fresh ideas that disturb the status quo. Moreover, it shows that Abbott's argument that jurisdictional battles mainly occur at the margins of a profession's remit may need to be modified. The turf war between barristers and solicitors in litigation is taking place within the core activity of legal practice not at the margin.

lawyers, law firms, barristers, solicitors, audience, courts, litigation

Abstract:
It is the 60th birthday of legal aid in the UK. The question asked in this paper is: has legal aid reached the end of its life or is it about to enter a new third age? The UK has the highest spend on legal aid of any country in the world, running to over £2 billion a year. The vast majority of this goes on criminal legal aid of which a considerable portion pays for very high cost criminal cases. Civil legal aid is the rump receiving whatever is left over after criminal work has been paid for.

Over the last 60 years legal aid has gone from near universal coverage to a very limited range of work which is now mostly taken up with family and welfare aid. Means and merits tests exclude most people from accessing legal aid.

The supplement/replacement to legal aid has come from the insurance industry with After the Event and Before the Event insurance policies guaranteeing some access to law and justice. Third party litigation funding is also gathering force.

The largest component, however, of civil justice in the modern era is in auxillary forms of justice, most notably in the rise of complaints procedures and ombudsmen. In the example used in the paper, the Financial Ombudsman Service, is ranked as the busiest adjudicator in the country dealing with over 700,000 complaints a year.

Legal aid has been shrunk by government and has now become part of a mixed model of the delivery of legal services. Whether this will be sufficient to fight Beveridge's five ‘Giant Evils’ of Want (poverty), Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness (unemployment) is still an open question.

Abstract:
The key question the article considers is, given high levels of scepticism regarding the possibility of achieving universal ethics, what lies behind the development of international codes? From this a number of other questions arise. Does the momentum come from professional bodies, from lawyers engaged in international commerce and finance or from other interests? Do these initiatives pave the way for collaboration between lawyers and professional bodies concerned about wider spheres of activity, for example in relation to human rights? Can such collaborations truly create the potential for migration of professional norms between jurisdictions and the need to create common understandings about ethical obligations, lawyer to client, lawyer to tribunal and lawyer to lawyer? Key figures in the movement hail the potential for a global harmonisation of codes of professional ethics. John Toulmin QC, who was president of the CCBE in 1993, thus asserted that a worldwide code could be founded on the US Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the Japanese Code and the CCBE Code.8 Underlying these questions is another fundamental question that concerns us: what incentive do diverse legal professions have to subscribe to potentially alien norms of conduct?

universal ethics, international codes, Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the Japanese Code, CCBE Code.8