Full Description
The topic of "too many lawyers" is both timely and timeless. The future make up and performance of the legal profession is in contest, challenged by new entrants, technology and the demand for transparency; at the same time, lawyers long have participated in contests over professional boundaries. In this book, we take up several fundamental questions about the question of whether there are "too many lawyers". What do we mean by "too many"? Is there a surplus of lawyers? What sort of lawyers are and will be needed? How best can we discern this? These questions and more are addressed here in scholarly articles presented at the Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (Spain) by some of the best researchers in the field. The collection, witha chapter by Prof. Richard L. Abel, addresses methodological, normative and policy questions regarding the number of lawyers in particular countries and worldwide, while connecting this phenomenon to political, social, economic, historical, cultural and comparative contexts. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the Legal Profession.
Contents
Introduction: Too many lawyers? 1. What does and should influence the number of lawyers? 2. Too many lawyers? Or should lawyers be doing other things? 3. Unauthorized practice of law and the production of lawyers 4. The flood of US lawyers: natural fluctuation or professional climate change? 5. It's the law schools stupid! Explaining the continuing increase in the number of lawyers 6. Coping with the consequences of 'too many lawyers': securing the place of international graduate law students 7. Effects of the acceleration in the number of lawyers in Israel 8. The new knowledge economy and the transformation of the law discipline 9. Is access to the profession access to justice? Lessons from Canada 10. The 'overcrowding the profession' argument and the professional melting pot 11. Setting the limits: who controls the size of the legal profession in Japan? 12. Legal education in Spain: challenges and risks in devising access to the legal professions 13. The virtue of low barriers to becoming a lawyer: promoting liberal and democratic values 14. 'I love my American job': professional prestige in the Indian outsourcing industry and global consequences of an expanding legal profession
