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Full-Text Articles in Law
Deregulation And The Lawyers' Cartel, Nuno Garoupa, Milan Markovic
Deregulation And The Lawyers' Cartel, Nuno Garoupa, Milan Markovic
Faculty Scholarship
At one time, the legal profession largely regulated itself. However, based on the economic notion that increased competition would benefit consumers, jurisdictions have deregulated their legal markets by easing rules relating to attorney advertising, fees, and, most recently, nonlawyer ownership of law firms. Yet, despite reformers’ high expectations, legal markets today resemble those of previous decades, and most legal services continue to be delivered by traditional law firms. How to account for this seeming inertia?
We argue that the competition paradigm is theoretically flawed because it fails to fully account for market failures relating to asymmetric information, imperfect information, and …
Tales Of Two Regimes For Regulating Limited Liability Law Firms In The Us And Australia: Client Protection And Risk Management Lessons, Susan Saab Fortney
Tales Of Two Regimes For Regulating Limited Liability Law Firms In The Us And Australia: Client Protection And Risk Management Lessons, Susan Saab Fortney
Faculty Scholarship
This essay contrasts the regimes that allow limited liability partnerships in the US and fully incorporated legal practices in Australia. The essay argues that Australia has taken advantage of an opportunity to develop innovative and necessary regulation of law firm ethical infrastructure with the introduction of incorporated legal practices, but the United States has not yet adequately addressed the consumer and ethical risks of limited liability partnerships. This essay raises the issue of whether Australia’s requirement that incorporated law firms should implement “appropriate management systems” to ensure ethical conduct is a model that could fruitfully be applied to all law …