Research undertaken by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (England and Wales) aims to shed light on what is being done, and what can be done, to improve the representation of female and black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) solicitors in senior roles such as partners or directors. The aim of the research was to understand what…
Prices of Individual Consumer Legal Services 2017: LSB research
The Legal Services Board (England and Wales) has published research which monitors the average prices that consumers pay for a number of common legal services. Understanding changes in prices over time helps determine whether there have been any improvements in the extent of competition between providers, and affordability and access to justice for consumers. It provides…
Legal Services Regulation at the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society: a progress update
The journey to Legal Services Regulation (LSR) has taken a major step with the November 17, 2017 approval by Council of several regulatory amendments to advance the Society’s initiatives. The result is a model of regulating legal services that is risk focused, proactive, principled and proportionate. Key components of the regime and the impacts on…
Alternative Business Structures for Lawyers and Law Firms: A View from the Global Legal Services Market
From a global perspective, the composition of legal practice components is undergoing tumultuous change. The concept of multidisciplinary practice has been embraced in many countries, where lawyers partner with non-lawyers and offer both legal and non-legal services. Less well received are alternative business structures, where lawyers and non-lawyers are permitted to be partners, and outsiders…
The Shifting Frontiers of Law: Access to Justice and Underemployment in the Legal Profession
The article examines two interrelated issues attracting attention from the legal academy, the profession, and policy makers: i) the crisis of access to justice among ordinary Canadians, and ii) the increasing number of qualified and underemployed lawyers. This article sets out to understand the interrelated factors underlying these two trends, and explores long-term, accessible solutions to address the misalignment between the supply of underemployed law graduates and a demand for affordable legal services. In response to these twin problems, we examine how legislative reform,…
Free Movement of Services: Challenges to the Implementation of Cross-border Legal Practice within EAC
The Protocol Establishing the East African Community Common Market, 2010 guarantees free movement of services supplied by nationals of Partner States, and the free movement of services and suppliers who are nationals of the Partner States within the EAC. This implies that the persons supplying services should be able to supply the services to the consumers in other Partner States without discrimination. Cross-border legal practice largely involves an advocate performing legal professional work beyond his or her home state. An advocate can offer legal services outside his or…
How Artificial Intelligence Will Affect the Practice of Law
Artificial intelligence is exerting an influence on all professions and industries. We have autonomous vehicles, instantaneous translation among the world’s leading languages, and search engines that rapidly locate information anywhere on the web in a way that is tailored to a user’s interests and past search history. Law is not immune from disruption by new technology. Software tools are beginning to affect various aspects of lawyers’ work, including those tasks…
Platform Economy in Legal Profession: An Empirical Study of 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 the portals as the “matchmaker” between the supply and thedemand side are often commingled with certain substantive legal services, which cannot be easily unbundled from each other. Given the grand information asymmetry…
The Twenty-First Century Delivery of Legal Services: Thoughts for Legal Education
The twenty-first century lawyer will face rapid and unsettling changes in the way legal services are delivered. Legal futurists foresee many aspects of legal services being delivered more efficiently with the use of technology. For example, future breakthroughs in artificial intelligence may expand the ability to automate many tasks that currently require the skill of…
Legal Profession of China in a Globalized World: Innovations and New Challenges
The legal profession is undergoing fundamental changes; and this is the case not just in those established legal markets. Based on a state-of-the-art sketch of China’s legal profession, this paper identifies and analyzes the latest innovation initiatives and alternative business models, which happen simultaneously at the levels of the law firms as incumbents, and the…