13-14 September 2018 The Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice is hosting its bi-annual Legislative Drafting Conference – “Charting Legislative Courses in a Complex World”. The Conference will tackle one of the most pervasive challenges in modern legislation: complexity, beginning with its principal drivers in public policy. Why does our world generate legislative complexity? And…
Event: IBA Europe-Caucasus-Asia Forum
A conference presented by the IBA European Regional Forum From 5-7 September 2018, Almaty will become the venue for one of the most significant legal events in Central Asia. The IBA Europe-Caucasus-Asia Forum, the successor of the famous CIS Local Counsel Forum, is returning to Kazakhstan with a slightly new look, but the same soul…
Event: Creating inclusive workplaces for LGBT+ people (Legal Sector)
Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion Wednesday, August 22, 2018 – 14:00 Virtual – Webinar This webcast will provide insights and promising practices of how legal professional can go beyond “pride” to celebrate LGBT+ people through the year, and create and maintain inclusive workplaces for LGBT+ people and their allies at all times. CCDI prides…
Solicitors Regulation Authority Assessment Organisation Appointed
The SRA has appointed Kaplan as the assessment organisation to develop and run the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). Selected following a rigorous, year-long process, Kaplan provides education, training and assessment across professional services, including in law, financial services, accountancy and banking. It has direct experience of assessment within the legal sector in England and Wales…
California prepares to lead US profession into non-lawyer ownership
Regulators are poised to consider radical rule changes that could decisively open the way to allowing non-lawyers into the legal profession of the US’s most populous state. The State Bar of California voted earlier this month to accept a report from legal academic Professor William D. Henderson calling for structural reforms to the way the…
Platform Economy in Legal Profession: An Empirical Study on Online Legal Service Providers in China
Platform economy breaks into the legal profession by pooling lawyers with different specializations into a simple user-friendly platform, consolidating the lower-tier supply side of the legal market and generating economy of scale. This paper is the very first empirical piece looking into China’s online legal service portals. It is found that, the intermediary functions of…
Regulating Law Firms from the Inside: The Role of Compliance Officers for Legal Practice in England and Wales
Following the Legal Services Act 2007, which permitted the delivery of legal services through Alternative Business Structures (ABS), the Solicitors Regulation Authority required all regulated legal service firms to appoint Compliance Officers for Legal Practice (COLPs). COLPs are charged with taking reasonable steps to ensure that firms comply with their obligations, which entails interpreting what…
Regulation tomorrow: what happens when technology is faster than the law?
In an age of constant, complex and disruptive technological innovation, knowing what, when, and how to structure regulatory interventions has become more difficult. Regulators find themselves in a situation where they believe they must opt for either reckless action (regulation without sufficient facts) or paralysis (doing nothing). Inevitably in such a case, caution tends to…
Call for Publications: Journal for the Professional Lawyer
The American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility Publications Board is seeking submissions for publication in Journal of the Professional Lawyer, a peer-reviewed annual publication which typically features longer articles than the Center’s magazine, covering topics in greater depth, in law review format. The deadline for articles for the 2018 edition of Journal of the…
Regulation by blockchain: the emerging battle for supremacy between the Code of Law and Code as Law
Many advocates of distributed ledger technologies (including blockchain) claim that these technologies provide the foundations for an organisational form that will enable individuals to transact with each other free from the travails of conventional law, thus offering the promise of grassroots democratic governance without the need for third party intermediaries. But does the assumption that…