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Out of touch and out of time: lawyers, their leaders and collective mobility within the legal profession

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Andrew M Francis*
Affiliation:
School and Department of Law, Keele University*

Abstract

The legal profession has experienced enormous upheaval over the last 30 years and this paper suggests that legal professional associations have failed to come to grips with this ‘brave new world’. This paper argues that the Law Society's current difficulties in performing its traditional roles are not simply examples of passing contemporary problems. Rather they represent the declining ability of the Law Society to serve as the fulcrum of the profession's collective advancement. Professional control may exist but on an individual and contingent basis alongside a reduced role for the Law Society.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 2004

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References

1. See for example H Sommerlad ‘“I've lost the plot”: An everyday story of legal aid lawyers’ (2001) 28 J Law and Society 335; H Kritzer ‘The professions are dead, long live the professions: Legal practice in a postprofessional world’ (1999) 33(1) Law and Society Review 713; and J Flood ‘Megalawyering in the global order: the cultural, social and economic transformation of global legal practice’ (1996) 3 Int J of the Legal Profession 169, amongst many others.

2. The Bar Council also faces many similar problems to the Law Society, for example pressure from the state to abolish the QC system. (See Department for Constitutional Affairs Consultation paper on the QC system, 14 July 2003.)

3. Kritzer, n 1 above, at 732.

4. Hanlon, G A Profession in Transition: Lawyers, The Market and Significant Others’ (1997) 60 Google Scholar MLR 798 at 822 sees the problem as an organisational issue, questioning whether it is possible for one professional body ‘to control the disparate groups within the profession’.

5. E Hughes Men and their work (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1981, orig pub 1958) pp 78–80.

6. See for example Bucher, R and Strauss, E Professions in Process’ (1961) 66 Google Scholar AJS 325 at 330–332.

7. For a more detailed discussion of the methodology of the larger project from which this empirical data was drawn see A Francis ‘Legal Executives and the phantom of legal professionalism: the rise and rise of the third branch of the legal profession?’ (2002)9(1) Int J of the Legal Profession 5 at 7.

8. M Larson The Rise of Professionalism: A sociological analysis (London: University of California Press, 1977) pp 69–70.

9. R Abel The Legal Profession of England and Wales (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988) p 250.

10. R Abel ‘Between Market and State: The Legal Profession in Turmoil’ (1989) 52 MLR 285. While Abel's work has been described as the ‘dominant paradigm in relation to the sociology of the legal profession’ (A Paterson ‘Professional and the Legal Services Market’ (1996) 3 Int J of the Legal Profession 137 at 139), this thesis is not without its critics, see particularly Paterson. Abel has also been criticised for adopting an internal legal perspective that lacks social scientific objectivity. See M Osiel ‘Lawyers as monopolists, aristocrats and entrepreneurs’ (1989) 103 Harv LR 2009; and M Berends ‘An elusive profession’ (1992) 26 Law and Society Review 161.

11. Paterson, n 10 above.

12. Abel, n 10 above.

13. Paterson, n 10 above, at 158.

14. In these terms Abel's identification of legal professionalism as historically specific could be seen as the historical specificity of a particular moment of legal professionalism - a relatively stable period of Paterson's evolving notion of professionalism: Paterson, n 10 above, at 140.

15. Bucher and Strauss, n 6 above.

16. R Nelson and D Trubek ‘Arenas of Professionalism: The Professional Ideologies of Lawyers in Context’ in R Nelson, D Trubek and R Solomon (eds) Lawyers' Ideals/Lawyers' Practices: Transformations in the American Legal Profession (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992).

17. Nelson and Trubek, n 16 above, p 186.

18. Nelson and Trubek, n 16 above, p 212.

19. P. Bourdieu ‘The Force of Law: Toward a Sociology of the Juridical Field’ (1987) 38 Hastings LJ 805 at 811. R Nelson and D Trubek ‘Introduction: New Problems and New Paradigms in Studies of the Legal Profession’ in R Nelson, D Trubek and R Solomon (eds) Lawyers' Ideals/Lawyers' Practices: Transformations in the American Legal Profession (Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1992) acknowledge this link at p 23.

20. The other arenas that Abbott identifies as sites of a profession's claims were the public and legal arenas.

21. Perkin notes that this competition, a ‘mutual disdain between the different professions, [together with] individual arrogance [and] collective condescension towards the laity’ has been the ‘Achilles’ Heel of the professions preventing them achieving the class based homogeneity of the old ruling classes (H Perkin The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1880 (London: Routledge, 1990) p 390).

22. A Abbott The System of the Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labour (London: University of Chicago Press, 1988) pp 82–85.

23. Abbott, n 22 above, pp 52–57.

24. Abbott, n 22 above, p 106.

25. C Glasser ‘The Legal Profession in the 1990s - Images of Change’ (1990) 10 LS 1; and B Cole Trends in the Solicitors Profession 2001 (London: The Law Society, 2002) pp 17–19.

26. See further Nelson and Trubek, n 16 above, p 197 discussing the politics of the American Bar Association (ABA).

27. D Sugarman ‘Bourgeois collectivism, professional power and the boundaries of the State. The public and private life of the Law Society, 1825–1914’ (1996) 3 Int J of the Legal Profession 83 at 98.

28. The Law Society was initially established by a group of leading London practitioners. These elite origins were important in enabling the Law Society to be recognised internally as the profession's representative voice (Larson, n 8 above, p 70).

29. For a much fuller account of the history of the Law Society see Sugarman, n 27 above; D Sugarman A Brief History of the Law Society (London: The Law Society, 1995); and also M Burrage ‘From a gentleman's to a public profession - Status and Politics in the history of English Solicitors’ (1996) 3 Int J of the Legal Profession 45.

30. See for example Law Society Press Release 9/10/00 Law Society Publishes Report Calling For Independent Judicial Appointments System, and in earlier times campaigns to secure the most favourable outcome to the debate on public legal services for its members (T Goriely ‘Law for the Poor: the relationship between advice agencies and solicitors in the development of poverty law’ (1996) 3 Int J of the Legal Profession 215 at 233).

31. Kritzer, n 1 above, at 749.

32. To some extent this structure may seem to mirror Abel's (n 10 above) identification of factors pointing to a decline in professionalism. However, I am specifically concerned with how the collective aspect of legal professionalism (as supported by the Law Society) is under pressure. Legal professionalism will survive but with a heightened emphasis upon individual avenues of advancement.

33. Sugarman, n 27 above, at 108.

34. Y Dezalay ‘Turf Battles and Tribal Wars’ (1991) 54 MLR 792; and Y Dezalay ‘Introduction’ in Y Dezalay and D Sugarman (eds) Professional Competition and Professional Power: Lawyers, Accountants and the Social Construction of Markets (London: Routledge, 1995).

35. The elite sector is defined for these purposes as the top eight law firms, although recent data suggests that the top four law firms are leaving the rest of profession behind (in terms of size and turnover): see http://www.thelawyer.com/LawyerNews/top100/ editorialpages/table_t100UK.asp (December 2002). These large commercial practitioners have been steadily expanding since the deregulation of the financial services market at the end of the 1980s (R Lee ‘From Profession to Business: The rise and rise of the City Law Firm’ (1992) 19 J Law and Society 1).

36. Abbott, n 22 above, p 118.

37. Larson argues that a shared standardised knowledge base was fundamentally important arguing that it ‘is in fact, the main support of a professional subculture’ (n 8 above, p 45, Larson's emphasis).

38. Flood, n 1 above, at 192.

39. Abbott, n 22 above, p 59.

40. ‘Multi-Disciplinary Practices’ is the terminology employed by the Law Society Quality, Choice and the Public Interest: Response to the consultation paper ‘In the Public Interest?’ published by the Lord Chancellor's Department (London: The Law Society, November 2002) p 37. However, many law firms already employ professionals from other disciplines. The difficulty from a regulatory perspective is the partnership aspect (see Law Society, November 2002, p 44; and in particular Department for Constitutional Affairs Competition and Regulation in the legal services market (London: DCA, July 2003) p 11 (web version).

41. The Law Society Competition Restrictions in the Profession: The Law Society's Response to the Office of Fair Trading (London: The Law Society, 2000, web version) p 12.

42. Law Society, n 40 above, pp 37–39.

43. For example The Lord Chancellor's Department In the Public Interest? A consultation by the LCD following the OFT report on Competition in the Professions CP 07/02 (2002).

44. R Lee Firm Views - Work of and Work in the Largest Law Firms Research Study No 35 (London: Law Society, 1999) pp 11–13, notes that many of these firms envisage mergers with accountants and US firms. See also ‘Non-lawyer Chiefs rival partners for pay status’Law Society's Gazette, 18 June 2003.

45. The Lawyer, 9 June 2000, p 3, internet version. The disdain for ‘some Solicitors Act Regulation’ was also strongly evident in Lee's research (n 44 above).

46. While this may be managed in the short term, the longer-term capacity of the Law Society to maintain regulatory authority for solicitors, let alone non-solicitors working in legal services, appears far from secure (DCA, n 40 above, p 14).

47. See also Law Society, n 40 above, p 38.

48. H McVea ‘Predators and the Public Interest – the “Big Four” and Multi-Disciplinary Practices’ (2002)65(6) MLR 811 at 833. It may be, however, that as the state is increasingly sceptical of the profession's public interest argument, the profession becomes more selective in invoking these ideas.

49. Kritzer, n 1 above, at 726. Johnson argues that this ‘myth of equal competence [was] effective in generating public trust in a system in which members of the community judge the competence of one another’: T Johnson Professions and Power (London: Macmillan, 1972) p 55.

50. Abbott, n 22 above, p 40. An interesting example of professional competition to define the qualities of a task is seen in the debate between anaesthetists and surgeons over the point at which death occurs. Anaesthetists are keen to use general anaesthetic to prevent ‘pain’ during organ donation. However, if medically defined ‘brain stem death’ has occurred, the surgeons assert that there is no need for anaesthetic: ‘Transplant row over pain rule’Guardian, 19 August 2000, p 1.

51. Law Society Consultation Document: A new Law Society for a changing profession (London, The Law Society, 2000) web version, p 3.

52. At the time the interviews took place, towards the end of 1999, the central decision-making body within the Law Society was the Interim Executive Committee (now the Main Board). The establishment of this executive body was part of the internal governance reforms discussed below. Given the animosity that these reforms caused, my interviewees represented a range of those on the IEC and those further removed from the decision-making, as well as a balance of geographical locations, firm sizes, disciplines and gender. See further Francis, n 7 above.

53. Nelson and Trubek, n 16 above, p 186.

54. Nelson and Trubek, n 16 above, p 195.

55. On this notion of ‘habitus’, see Bourdieu, n 19 above, at 811.

56. There has always been a level of heterogeneity within the legal professions. What has changed is not only is the degree of heterogeneity greater than ever before but the professional associations are also considerably weaker than they have been in the past.

57. Lee, n 44 above, p 30. See also J Griffiths-Baker Serving Two Masters: Conflicts of Interest in the Modern Law Firm (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2002). For further examples see ‘Dispute warning over conflicts’Law Society's Gazette, 6 June 2003, reporting on City firms' failure to follow conflicts of interest guidelines. This issue also causes concern at government level (DCA, n 40 above, ‘Scoping Study’, p 19).

58. Law Society, n 51 above, p 2.

59. Abbott, n 22 above, p 134.

60. Abbott, n 22 above, p 106.

61. Bucher and Strauss, n 6 above, at 331.

62. Abbott, n 22 above, p 54.

63. See Joint Statement 1999 under the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. The importance of this strategy is highlighted by Bucher and Strauss who note that for segments to gain power they need representation within the training centres of the profession: n 6 above, at 331.

64. The Law Society/The Bar Council The Academic Stage of Training for Entry to the Legal Profession: Standards, Content and related issues. A Consultation by The Law Society of England and Wales and The General Council of the Bar of England and Wales with law faculties offering Qualifying Law Degrees (2002) para 12.

65. These proposals were justified on the basis of reported concerns from the membership about the quality of law degrees. Following widespread objections from Law Schools an amended, and slightly toned down, version was sent to Law Schools in April 2003.

66. ‘Revealed: Contents of the new City LPC’The Lawyer, 12 March 2001, and reporting on a City firm's review of its own training provisions in the light of the new course: ‘It ain't over till it's over’The Lawyer, 2 June 2003. Places are available on the City LPC for students without training contracts at the eight City firms. However, students are likely to enrol on the course with a view to working in the broader City sector or eventually to secure a training contract with one of the eight firms.

67. In the French context Dezalay and Trubek note the challenge to the academy posed by the ‘legal multinationals which have begun to invest heavily in legal education and production of discourse’ (Y Dezalay and D Trubek ‘Global Restructuring and the Law: Studies of the Internationalization of Legal Fields and the Creation of Transnational Arenas’ (1994) 44(2) Case W LR 407 at 430 (approx, html version).

68. Abel, n 9 above, p 298; and see also Bourdieu, n 19 above, at 835.

69. Abel, n 9 above, pp 189–196.

70. Abel, n 10 above, at 286.

71. See for example the government pledge to work towards a target of 50% of those under 30 having experienced Higher Education by 2010 (Clarke ‘Statement on Higher Education’ HC Official Report (6th series) col 303, 22 January 2003).

72. M Shiner ‘Young, Gifted and Blocked! Entry to the solicitors profession’ in P Thomas (ed) Discriminating Lawyers (London: Cavendish, 2000) p 96.

73. N Savage ‘Professional Status and the Training Contract’ (2002) 146(35) Sol Jo 818.

74. Cole, n 25 above, p 61.

75. Cole, n 25 above, p 63.

76. Hanlon, n 4 above, at 805.

77. M Galanter and T Palay Tournament of Lawyers; The Transformation of the Big Law Firm (London: University of Chicago Press, 1991) p 87.

78. The Law Society Task Force, High Street Working Party (London: Law Society, 1999). These concerns were once again highlighted by the Law Society (n 40 above, p 45) in respect of the pressures that smaller firms would encounter in the face of competition from new arrivals in the marketplace such as ‘Tesco Law’.

79. Lee, n 44 above, p 33.

80. ‘College LPC “weak” says leaked report’The Lawyer, 21 February 2000, p 11. The course began in 2001: see n 66 above.

81. L Devonald ‘An endangered species’Law Society's Gazette, 29 June 1994, p 2.

82. G Hanlon Lawyers, the state and the market: Professionalism revisited (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999) pp 123–163.

83. A Pinnington and T Morris ‘Archetype Change in Professional Organizations: Survey Evidence from Large Law Firms’ (2003) 14 BrJ Management 85 at 97.

84. Lee, n 44 above, pp 32–36. It is worth noting that despite these individual concerns, entrants to the profession are beginning to assume the levels of social homogeneity (Shiner, n 74 above), associated with the collective professional project (Abel, n 9 above, p 298).

85. A concern highlighted by Law Society interviewees and reflected in policy documents produced by the professional bodies, for example The Law Society Training Strategy: Working Documents for Discussion (Redditch: The Law Society, May 1999). See similar concern expressed by The Bar Council AGCAS/Law Faculty Biennial Conference, 19 September 2002.

86. Paterson, n 10 above, at 139. Jurisdictional competition also existed within legal services between solicitors and other providers (Abbott, n 22 above, p 265). See also D Sugarman ‘Who colonized whom? Historical reflections on the intersection between law, lawyers and accountants’ in Y Dezaley and D Sugarman (eds) Professional Competition and Professional Power: Lawyers, Accountants, and the Social Construction of Markets (London: Routledge, 1995) p 228; and Abel n 9 above, pp 185–189.

87. Administration of Justice Act 1985, s 11.

88. Abel, n 9 above, p 295. See current Solicitors' Practice Rule 2 ‘Publicity’ and Publicity Code (as amended 13 January 2003). http://www.lawsoc.org.

89. H Sommerlad ‘Managerialism and the Legal Profession: A new professional paradigm’ (1995) 2 Int J of the Legal Profession 159 at 179. For example 25% of sole practitioners earned less than £19,000 pa from their practice. In contrast median profits per partner in the 26–80 partner practices were £154,000: Cole, n 25 above, p 46. Partners in the largest firms earn considerably more.

90. In contrast, Abel, n 9 above, notes that controlled competition consolidated the profession's claims that commercial pressures would not deflect them from their service to the client and to wider society: p 293.

91. DCA, n 40 above, p 8.

92. Law Society, n 40 above, p 12. Sherr notes that the spirit of competition engendered following the removal of the conveyancing monopoly even prior to arrival of licensed conveyancers in practice saw prices fall by 30% during the mid to late-1980s (A Sherr ‘Come of Age’ (1994) 1 Int J of the Legal Profession 3).

93. Kritzer, H The fracturing legal profession: the case of plaintiffs' personal injury lawyers’ (2001) 8(3)Google Scholar Int J of the Legal Profession 225 at 236 on competition and fragmentation even within the segment of the claimants' bar.

94. Sugarman, n 27 above, at 102.

95. Berends, n 10 above, at 175; and Paterson, n 10 above, at 139.

96. Larson, n 8 above, pp 69–71.

97. Abbott, n 22 above, p 119.

98. Abel, n 9 above, pp 289–293.

99. ILEX council members also suggested this was an added pressure contributing to their apathetic membership. A more fundamental concern was the fact that many ILEX council members recognised, that for many of their members there was little point in continuing their association with ILEX post qualification ‘once they had their bit of paper’: Interview 4, ILEX.

100. Sommerlad, n 89 above, at 179.

101. Hanlon, n 82 above, pp 142–146.

102. Bucher and Strauss, n 6 above, at 330.

103. Abe1, n 10 above, at 321.

104. M Davies ‘Can the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors expect a happy birthday? A short review of the first three years’ (1999) 15 Professional Negligence 173 and summarised more recently by DCA, n 40 above, ‘Scoping Study’, p 17.

105. See Larson, n 8 above, p 56 on the role of the ‘service ideal’ in a profession's project. This rhetoric has been repeated in recent policy documents. See for example Law Society, n 40 above, noting ‘the absolute trust between solicitors’ and ‘the public's trust in solicitors’ (p 16) and emphasising ‘access to justice’ concerns about new competitors with their members' livelihoods as a secondary issue.

106. The Lord Chancellor reserved powers under the Access to Justice Act 1999, s 51 (AJA 1999) to appoint a ‘Legal Services Complaints Commissioner’, an office which would regulate the legal professions to a greater extent than ever before. The Department was also forceful in the language it chose to justify AJA 1999, s 47 (see further details below). ‘The days of pre-entry closed shops are ended for trade unions and should not apply to other bodies acting in a similar way’ (Geoff Hoon, Commons Standing Committee E, col 416, 13 May 1999).

107. Law Society, n 51 above; and generally for example Law Society, n 41 above.

108. See for example M Mears ‘No Connection with the Previous Firm?’ [1997] NLJ, 5 December, p 1770; and N Jopson ‘Solicitors under Pressure’ [2001] NLJ, 9 March, p 330 who argues that solicitors are not allowed to run their business ‘in the way we want, in our own style and with the minimum of interference’. More general criticisms of self-regulation from the profession are seen in the reaction to the Law Society President's calls to regulate a unified profession: ‘Papering over the cracks’The Lawyer, 11 August 1999.

109. Lee, n 44 above, pp 25–29; Sommerlad, n 89 above, at 178–180, and Devonald, n 81 above, p 2.

110. Legal Aid Act 1988, s 3.

111. Davies, n 104 above. The OSS was renamed the Consumer Complaints Service on 19 April 2004.

112. Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, s 21.

113. See LCD Press Notice 212/02, 9 July 2002 ‘Law Society's consistently shaky performance … time is right for a more fundamental debate’; and LCD Press Notice 82/03,4 March 2003 ‘rising numbers of cases unacceptable’. The fundamental review has now been announced DCA, n 63 above. In advance of this review, Lord Falconer, the last Lord Chancellor, announced in a speech to the Law Society that he would appoint a Legal Services Complaints Commissioner under AJA 1999, s 51 (26 September 2003).

114. Nelson and Trubek, n 16 above, p 188.

115. H Sommerlad ‘The implementation of quality initiatives and the New Public Management in the legal aid sector in England and Wales: bureaucratisation, stratification and surveillance’ (1999) 6 Int J of the Legal Profession 311; and Sommerlad, n 89 above.

116. Hanlon, n 82 above; and Lee, n 44 above.

117. E Friedson The Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Medicine (New York: Dodd Mead and Co, 1970) p 23.

118. Larson, n 8 above, p 53.

119. Sugarman, n 27 above, at 118.

120. The Main Board is composed of Chief Executive, Office Holders (President etc), Chairs of Subsidiary Boards and other elected Council Members. The Subsidiary Boards are Compliance, Finance and Resources, Law Reform, Representation and Standards (see ‘Overview of the Law Society’, http://www.lawsoc.org).

121. Council members spoke of there ‘being blood on the carpet before the year is out’ (Interview F, Law Society) and of a ‘small clique … who want to run the show’ (Interview H, Law Society).

122. Bucher and Strauss, n 6 above, at 331.

123. It could be argued that the ‘modernisers’ (the ‘small clique who want to run the show’) have been successful in seizing control of the Law Society. Nevertheless I suggest that they will struggle to articulate and impose a profession wide vision of legal professionalism.

124. We have already noted that competition in practice has led to a decline in local law society activity, as solicitors view other local solicitors as competitors rather than colleagues.

125. The presidential election of 2000 saw a turnout of 18.6%. The response rate to the consultation on the proposals for the Main Board was around 1.3% of the profession (Law Society Reform: Introduction and Recommendations, 16 January 2001, http://www.lawsoc.org).

126. M Laffin and T Entwistle ‘New problems, old professions? The changing national world of local government professions’ (2000) 28 Policy and Politics 207 at 213–214.

127. ILEX council members recounted ‘growing up with ILEX’ and moving from the branch association to the council as a ‘natural progression’, in contrast to their descriptions of the wider membership as ‘fairly apathetic’.

128. Nelson and Trubek, n 19 above, p 22; and see also Bourdieu's notion of ‘habitus’ establishing accepted patterns of behaviour for actors within a field at n 19 above, at 811.

129. The following statement is illustrative of the prevailing mood within the Law Society. ‘I think it's a very arrogant Government that has proved it can do what it wants to do with or without the Law Society. I don't think the Law Society can do much about it’ (Interview N, Law Society).

130. Although concerns within the Law Society that the new Chief Executive is ‘denting it out of shape’ were expressed in ‘Cleaning up their Act’The Lawyer, 30 July 2001. 131. Laffin and Entwistle, n 126 above, at 216.

132. For example the Law Society has abandoned its plans for a short-term model of MDPs, because counsel's opinion suggested that regulating non-solicitor partners via contract could be unlawful. The Law Society is therefore seeking amendment of its statutory powers of regulation to allow it to respond to the new conditions in practice (MDP Working Party Fourth Interim Report, 5 March 2001). These issues will now be dealt with by the forthcoming government review (DCA, n 40 above). Lord Falconer has, however, suggested that an interim model of MDPs could be agreed between the Law Society and the government before the Review is completed (Law Society's Gazette, 3 January 2004).

133. Nelson and Trubek, n 16 above, p 186.

134. Larson, n 8 above, pp 70–74.

135. Abbott, n 22 above, p 106.

136. The Law Society, n 40 above, emphasising the core values of solicitors that protect the public (p 2), highlighting its concerns about the destruction of the ‘fabric of small communities’ (p 3) and asserting that the ‘professional ethos and training of solicitors … creates a continuing commitment to standards’ (p 15) and generally.

137. Nelson and Trubek, n 19 above, p 23.

138. Nelson and Trubek, n 19 above, pp 22–23.

139. Laffin and Entwistle, n 126 above, at 213.

140. Perhaps, a metaphorical version of law firm policy to change from their ‘dress down’ clothing when meeting particular clients (‘Tulkinghom - a monumental memo’The Lawyer, 21 August 2000, p 21).

141. See Law Society, nn 40 and 41 above.

142. Lee, n 44 above, p 29. The council members and policy officers of the Law Society were well aware of this attitude. There was acquiescence with this, or at least resignation that they could not do a great deal about it.

143. Paterson, n 10 above.

144. The Law Society, n 41 above, p 3.

145. Hanlon, n 4 above, at 822.

146. Rejected by the Law Society because it has not ‘rendered the medical profession immune from recurrent criticism relating to standards’ at n 41 above, p 2.

147. For several years the state showed little enthusiasm for such a role (M Seneviratne ‘Consumer Complaints and the legal profession: making self-regulation work?’ (2000) 7 Int J of the Legal Profession 39 at 51–52). However, this may change following the outcome of the forthcoming review of regulation within legal services (DCA, n 40 above).

148. See also Laffin and Entwistle, n 126 above, at 214–215 on similar challenges facing public sector professions.

149. The powers were taken at the time the Law Society was engaged in a highly visible campaign over legal aid (LCD Press Release, 23 April 1999 ‘Lord Chancellor accuses the Law Society of scare-mongering’). See also Hoon's comments during the bill's passage through Parliament, n 106 above.

150. The Access to Justice Act 1999 (Solicitors' Practising Certificates) Order 2002, SI 2002/3235.

151. R Winteron, Second Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation, col 004, Tuesday 26 November 2002.

152. Much to the surprise of Mr Burnett MP, n 151 above, at col 006.

153. DCA, n 40 above.

154. Under AJA 1999, s 51.

155. J Paraskeva ‘Tackling Complaints’Law Society's Gazette, 2 October 2003.

156. DCA, n 40 above, p1 4. David Clementi (heading the review) has stated that he has ‘no fixed views about the right approach to regulation’, cited in S Ward ‘Balancing Act’Law Society's Gazette, 21 November 2003.

157. Even those that emphasised segments (Bucher and Strauss, n 6 above, at 330–332) and distinctive arenas (Nelson and Trubek, n 16 above, p 195) acknowledge the importance of a facade of homogeneity in presenting a vision of unity when negotiating with the state.

158. Kritzer, n 1 above.

159. Abbott, n 22 above, p 102.

160. Flood, n 1 above, at 201.