Modernizing Legal Services In Common Law Countries

Most people understand that regulations have a direct bearing on their access to things such as clean air and water and safe working environments. However, in the United States, few people make the connection between how legal services are regulated and how difficult it is for them to access legal services. Indeed, on the question of affordable and accessible civil justice, the World Justice Project ranks the US 94th out of 113 countries, behind Albania, Belarus, Myanmar, and Russia. For decades academics and others have debated whether the legal profession is self-regulated and, if it is, whether it should be. But is it the right debate? Self-regulation—or not—does not obviate the need for effective regulation. Independent, accountable, and transparent regulatory bodies, effective oversight of those bodies, the genuine engagement of citizens in the regulatory process, evidence-based research to fully assess the impact of regulation, and an approach to regulation that is proportionate and targeted to actual risks are essential for effective regulation. Through the lens of the adoption of alternative structures, this book explains how England, Wales, and Australia have, by embracing these essential elements, successfully modernized their regulatory environments for legal services, and how Canada has taken firm steps down its own path to the same. In contrast, by rejecting these elements, the United States remains paralyzed in an unproductive regulatory environment for legal services. This book provides a blueprint for how the US can take inspiration from its common law sisters to breathe new life into its regulatory environment for legal services. Ultimately, modernization will require more—and better—regulation that is financed publicly through equitable, progressive revenue sources.

This book addresses critical questions about how legal development works in practice and is a timely reference for practitioners of institutional reform, providing a thought-provoking interdisciplinary collection of essays in an area of renewed scholarly interest. The contributors are a distinguished, international group of scholars and practitioners of law, development, social sciences and religion, with extensive experience in the developing world.

This collection explores developments in the regulation of legal services by examining the control of the markets in several key countries and in jurisdictions within countries. The contributions consider emerging adjustments in regulatory structures and methods; examine the continuing role, if any, of professionals and how this may be changing; and speculate on the future of legal services regulation in each jurisdiction. The introductory and concluding chapters draw together similarities, differences and conclusions regarding directions of change in the regulation of legal services. They consider the emergence of alternatives to professionalism as a means of regulating legal services and some implications for the rule of law.

Discusses the skills required by future lawyers, and explores innovative and technology-driven approaches to modernising legal education.

This note explores the interactions between new technologies with key areas of commercial law and potential legal changes to respond to new developments in technology and businesses. Inspired by the Bali Fintech Agenda, this note argues that country authorities need to closely examine the adequacy of their legal frameworks to accommodate the use of new technologies and implement necessary legal reform so as to reap the benefits of fintech while mitigating risks. Given the cross-border nature of new technologies, international cooperation among all relevant stakeholders is critical. The note is structured as follows: Section II describes the relations between technology, business, and law, Section III discusses the nature and functions of commercial law; Section IV provides a brief overview of developments in fintech; Section V examines the interaction between technology and commercial law; and Section VI concludes with a preliminary agenda for legal reform to accommodate the use of new technologies.

Who should be allowed to provide legal services to others? What characteristics must these services possess? Through a comparative study of English-speaking jurisdictions, this book illuminates the policy choices involved in legal services regulation a

With the intensified focus on antiterrorism in US trade policy -- and the transfer of the Customs Service from the US Treasury Department to the Department of Homeland Security as the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection -- traditional ways of thinking about customs and trade law are now out of date. In light of the war on terrorism and the emphasis on border security, businesses engaged in the cross-border exchange of goods face a multitude of new laws and initiatives -- in addition to the traditional array of responsibilities required by the US Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While these regulations are intended to strengthen border security, without careful planning they may have the unfortunate result of hindering the efficient movement of goods. In addition to updated customs forms and helpful appendices, this third edition covers the burgeoning area of free trade agreements between the US and countries around the globe. These agreements are a critical aspect of US bilateral trade relations, affecting not only duty rates but also rules of origin and policies on investment, trade in services and access to Government procurement markets. In sum, this book is an invaluable tool for a host of international trade professionals including in-house counsel dealing with import-export issues, corporate logistic managers, regulatory and compliance managers, and import-export specialists.

This book addresses two countervailing challenges to theory and policy in law and economics. The first is the rise of legal origins theory, which denies the comparative law view of convergence between common law and civil law by the assertion of an economic superiority of common law. The second is the series of economic crises in the very financial markets on which that assertion was based. Both trends unsettled certainties about the rule of law and institutional economics. Meeting legal origins theory in its main areas of political science, sociology and economics, the book extends the interdisciplinary reach to neglected aspects of comparative law, legal history, dynamic econometric analysis and "quasi-natural experiments" with counterfactual evidence of different institutional regimes in divided countries. These combined methodological tools make tests of the economic impact of different legal origins much more reliable. This is shown for developed and newly industrialized countries as well as developing, transforming and emerging countries with or without financial center advantage, affected or not by financial crises. The Asian financial crises and the American subprime crisis have been, or could have been resolved using the resources of common law or civil law. These cases and data on access to justice in Africa, Asia and Latin America reveal the problem of substantive law remaining "law on the books" without efficient procedural rules and judicial structures. The single most striking common law-civil law divide is that lawyer-dominated common law procedure is slower and costlier than judge-managed civil law procedure. Countries as diverse as the Netherlands, Japan, and China show functional interaction between culture and law in legal reforms. Such interaction can reduce the occurrence of legal disputes as well as facilitate their resolution. It can use economic crises as catalysts for legal reforms or rely on regional integration, and it should replace the discredited method of legal "transplants" by sustained dialogue between legal advisors and all actors involved in legal reforms.