Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
The Peter A. Allard School of Law
Legal profession; professional history; cultural history; structural transformation; British Empire; North America; Canada; Alberta; West; Calgary; Manitoba; Canadian Bar Association; Law Society of Alberta; integrated bar
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Cultural Projects And Structural Transformation In The Legal Profession, W. Wesley Pue
Cultural Projects And Structural Transformation In The Legal Profession, W. Wesley Pue
All Faculty Publications
This paper explores the history of professional formation amongst lawyers, pointing to the surprising conclusions that contemporary legal professionalism bears little continuity with supposed roots in British professionalism and that one of the major motors driving professionalism was related to a project of cultural transformation in state and society at large. Whilst legal professions appear exclusionary and xenophobic from an outside perspective, the desire to control difference has deeper, more fully cultural roots, than arguments from self-interest per se might suggest.