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Commentators have predicted that machine intelligence and off-shoring will steadily undermine demand for lawyers in North America and Europe. This essay argues that this prediction is not equally valid for all types of legal practice. Personal plight practice — in which lawyers help individuals and small businesses involved in legal disputes — is largely sheltered from computerization and off-shoring. The article calls for the profession and legal educators to open doors between tomorrow’s lawyers and personal plight legal practice. Doing so will not only address the economic insecurity confronting tomorrow’s lawyers, but also enhance access to justice.
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What explains the dramatic contrast between legal services regulation in the United States and anglophone Canada, on one hand, and England/Wales and Australia, on the other? In order to help explain these divergent regulatory choices, and to further comparative analysis, this Essay proposes a taxonomy of theories of legal services regulation drawn from these common-law jurisdictions. Although most jurisdictions employ a combination of approaches, as well as some hybrid methods, the Essay identifies the two dominant perspectives: (1) the professionalist-independent framework, predominate in anglophone North America, and (2) the consumerist-competitive framework found in the common law jurisdictions of Northern Europe and Australia. This theoretical divide, in turn, helps explain why the United States and Canada have largely adhered to a body of self-regulation focused upon aspirations of professionalism and professional independence. Australia and England/Wales, by contrast, have embarked upon market-oriented reform that purports to promote consumer protection and consumer interests. In describing this taxonomy, we recognise jurisdictions sometimes employ hybrid regulatory strategies that combine elements of the professionalist-independent and consumerist-competitive frameworks, such as gatekeeper rules promulgated by the State (as opposed to gatekeeper regulations promulgated by judges or the legal profession). We also acknowledge that regulatory approaches are dynamic and that regulators may very well shift perspectives over time. Nevertheless, organising the claims of commentators and regulators into categories will help to promote analysis and comparison of legal services regulations, as well as to improve the quality of decision-making by those who craft and enforce the rules. We identify, for example, the crucial distinction between how these two approaches construct an understanding of legal services clients. Consumerist-competitive systems identify clients as consumers (who are similar to consumers of other goods and services) and apply this perspective to the particular context of purchasing legal services. In contrast, professionalist-independent systems understand the experience of a legal services client as fundamentally different from that of other consumers and, accordingly, require a wholly distinct regulatory approach.
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‘Abysmal’ was the word used to describe the accessibility of Canadian civil justice in a recent major report. Access to justice is simultaneously a social problem, a professional obligation for the legal profession, and a market opportunity for law firms. Are there any signs of significant progress on any of these fronts? This short Correspondent's report will review recent Canadian efforts to connect people of modest means with the expert legal services they urgently need.