Moving Client Trust Funds Away from Lawyers to a Third Party Synopsis This session will explore whether the fiduciary duty to safeguard client trust funds should be transferred to a third party. The panel will present various methods of safeguarding client trust funds utilized by jurisdictions including privately owned corporate third parties and centralization of…
2018 Conference Preview: The legal regulator’s role in combating Money Laundering and FATF mutual evaluation
The legal regulator’s role in combating Money Laundering and FATF mutual evaluation Synopsis The fourth round of mutual evaluations by the FATF is ongoing and focus on effective tools to combat money laundering. The speakers share their experience in preparing for and contributing to FATF review and provide valuable information in order to reach a…
2018 Conference Preview: Trust & Transparency
Trust and Transparency – Friday 5 October 2018 Synopsis To present the challenges presented by the expectation of members of the public who use legal services around the trust in the way in which those services are regulated and the transparency allied to that including the challenges presented in the legal services market around transparency…
Access to Justice and Routine Legal Services: New Technologies Meet Bar Regulators
We are in the early stages of a technological revolution in legal services. Technology is displacing lawyers in a wide array of tasks such as document drafting, review, and assembly, and is also reshaping the way that lawyers find clients and deliver assistance. For most consumers, these are welcome developments. Such innovations generally reduce costs and increase…
How to Build a Better Bar Exam
As a licensing exam, the purpose of the bar exam is consumer protection–-ensuring that new lawyers have the minimum competencies required to practice law effectively. As critics point out, however, the exam, and particularly the multiple-choice question portion of the exam, has significant flaws because it assesses legalknowledge and analysis in an artificial and unrealistic context,…
Building the Rule of Law in Afghanistan: The Importance of Legal Education
The ‘rule of law’ remains an elusive commodity in Afghanistan. Securing a stable Afghanistan underpinned by the rule of law has proven exceedingly difficult despite widespread consensus in the international community regarding its fundamental importance. There is broad recognition that structural flaws in the Afghan justice system and legal profession undermine access to justice and democratic governance. Lawyers…
Legal Innovation is the Rage, But There’s Plenty of Resistance
Mark Cohen writes for Forbes that “The staid legal industry is smitten by “innovation,” even as it lacks a common definition how the term applies to legal delivery and education/training,” but in reality “A cultural war is being waged between lawyers and the broader legal industry.” He acknowledges that, in reality, “There is a rift…
Former Nigerian Bar President states Body of Benchers is ill-equipped to regulate legal profession
The immediate past President of the Nigerian Bar Association, A. B Mahmoud, SAN, has said the Body of Benchers was ill-equipped to regulate the affairs of the legal profession. The body, which comprises of lawyers and judges is put in place to regulate the education of aspirants to the bar and consequently admits lawyers who…
NEW! ICLR Digital Content Group on ICLR.net
ICLR.net is excited to announce our new membership group for Digital Content. Join our group and post your legal regulation & legal profession news, events, research publications, consultations and announcements. Sharing your digital content with the ICLR.net community is best way to reach a truly diverse and international audience of regulators. Get involved today! Visit…
Singapore’s Ministry of Law Accepts Recommendation to Strengthen Professional Training of Lawyers
The Ministry of Law (MinLaw) announced on 30 August 2018 that it has accepted in principle the recommendations of the Committee for the Professional Training of Lawyers on strengthening the professional training regime for lawyers in Singapore. The key recommendations include: (a) uncoupling admission to the Bar from the completion of a practice training contract;…