reign bar in an English common law jurisdiction but may require the applicant to take further courses in US law at an ABA approved law school.
In some US States it is possible to practise as a Foreign Legal Consultant under home title (for instance as a solicitor). As a Foreign Legal Consultant, it is possible to advise on home country law and international law, but not to appear in court. The ABA commission on Multijurisdictional Practice referred to above has recently strongly encouraged those US States without a foreign Legal Consultants regime to introduce one.
One more type of regulation of the legal profession is self-regulation. Often self-regulation is seen as arising from the social institution of trust: a social contract between society and the profession mitigates the moral hazard problem arising from the information asymmetry. However, they recognize that safeguards are required, particularly to ensure that the profession does not operate as a cartel. They also feel that the various professions will act as watchdogs on each other.
Self-regulation may reduce the cost of the regulator acquiring information and makes adjustments to regulations easier. These benefits need to be compared to the potential efficiency losses due to the potential for cartel-like behavior. Even where regulation by a professional body is deemed an appropriate solution it has been argued that the public interest would be protected best by having a number of professional bodies in competition with each other.
Regulation may not be the only solution to the information asymmetry problem. Independent rating agencies have been suggested as a solution or the use of repeat purchasers to perform the agency function on behalf of infrequent purchasers. Competition can also generate its own quality signals. p> The current state of the discussion in the conceptual literature is such that although some authors recognize the potential problem arising from the asymmetry of information between client and professional, considerable skepticism remains on whether traditional self-regulation is a solution to the problem or a source of even greater welfare loss.
Scientists have identified a number of instruments typically used by self-regulators of the legal profession which may work against the public interest:
(i) restrictions on entry;
(ii) (Ii) restrictions on advertising and other means of promoting a competitive process within the profession;
(iii) restrictions on fee competition;
(iv) restrictions on organizational form. p> A separate although connected literature has developed on restrictions on the nature of fee contracts between lawyers and clients.
1.2 LAWYERS: PARASITES ON THE BACK OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER?
Many critics accuse lawyers of making legal services an expensive luxury, and they challenged lawyers to re-think the way their services are provided and priced. In particular, there is an idea to stop billing by the hour and start charging by the case. Another initiative is that there is a need for ceilings, instead of an open-sky practice.
Criticism of lawyers 'fees is almost as old as the profession itself and the present situation is no worse than before. But public tolerance has changed. Imagine if airlines charged on the same basis as lawyers: an hourly fee, with no guarantees of any limit and the price escalating as delays, bad weather and mechanical failures occurred.
What is to be done? Can the profession set its own house in order? The problem is not so much high fees in themselves; there's nothing wrong with charging a rich tariff to those who can afford it. After all, it is said, lawyers are selling a valuable commodity and are entitled to expect top-dollar remuneration.
But lawyers, unlike bankers, are not just another sector of the business world. They have sway over a legal system supposedly committed to social justice. And it is one of that system's virtues that justice is not for sale to the highest bidder. As long as lawyers are beyond the pocket of most citizens, it means social injustice.
Sadly, the legal profession too easily mistakes its own interests for those of the public. Allowing paralegals and others to offer more legal services might be a good start. A more practical, effective solution would be to let lawyers retain their monopoly, but only on the condition that they truly serve the public. This means that there must be more citizens and clients involved in running the profession, that lawyers must be answerable to someone other than themselves, that they pay for their monopolistic privilege by contributing a share of their fees to funding legal services for poorer litigants, and that fees are regulated for price as well as quality.
As long as access to justice depends on access to lawyers, society must oblige...
