Private Law Firms in the Public Interest: The Organizational and Institutional Determinants of Pro Bono Participation, 1994–2005

Despite longstanding concern that the commercialization of legal practice is antithetical to professionalism, corporate law firms have dramatically increased their pro bono participation over the past few decades. What explains this paradox? This article examines the organizational and institutional determinants of pro bono participation across an elite field of large law firms. I find that pro bono work is only partly rooted in internal organizational dynamics and that the institutional environment appears more important for explaining variation in pro bono participation. These findings indicate that large firms may be more drawn to pro bono work as a social process tied to professional status and legitimacy than to concrete, rational organizational goals. Moreover, these findings point to the importance of the interstitial space that these firms inhabit between the legal profession and corporate market as an especially important factor in facilitating, rather than dampening, pro bono participation.     

Globalization as Boundary‐Blurring: International and Local Law Firms in China's Corporate Law Market

The worldwide expansion of international law firms has generated regulatory battles and workplace conflicts in advanced market economies as well as developing countries. This article uses the case of China to explore the changing global–local relationship in the globalization of the legal profession and to understand the role of the government in constituting the corporate law market. The author argues that the globalization of the Chinese corporate law market is a process of boundary‐blurring and hybridization, by which local firms become structurally global‐looking and global firms receive localized expertise. Boundary‐blurring occurs in law firms' workplaces, in lawyers' career trajectories, and in state regulatory policies. It has produced a localized expertise that can be diffused conversely from local firms to global firms and has partially changed their relationship from collaboration to competition. Consequently, it becomes increasingly difficult for the government to make or enforce any substantive policy to clarify the market boundary between these two types of law firms.     

Migration and Social Structure: The Spatial Mobility of Chinese Lawyers

This article uses the case of Chinese migrant lawyers to examine how the spatial mobility of individual practitioners shapes the social structure of the profession. Drawing on data from 261 interviews conducted in twelve Chinese provinces during 2004–2010, the 2009 Chinese Legal Environment Survey, lawyer yearbooks, and other public sources, the authors examine the patterns, causes, outcomes, and structural consequences of Chinese lawyers' internal migration. The empirical analysis shows that the spatial mobility of Chinese lawyers has not only increased the stratification and inequality of law practice in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, but it has also aggravated the shortage of legal service and intensified interprofessional competition in western and rural China. Based on findings from the Chinese case, the article connects the sociology of law and migration studies and moves toward a new processual theory for understanding the relationship between microlevel mobility and macrolevel stratification in the legal profession.     

Practice and Privilege: Social Change and the Structure of Large Law Firms

Despite dramatic changes in size and specialization, large law firms have remained remarkably unchanged in other respects. Introducing research on major Chicago law firms, this article examines how large law firms have changed so much by changing so little. It proposes a theory of law firm growth emphasizing the relationship between changes in the market for sophisticated legal services and changes in the approach law firms have taken to organizing their practices. The author discusses the organizational structure of large law firms, giving particular attention to the various roles that lawyers play in such firms. After speculating on trends affecting large law firms, he points to implications of these trends for law and social change.     

Legal Elites and the Shaping of Corporate Law Practice in Brazil: A Historical Study

Brazil today has a legal market that allows for foreign lawyers and foreign firms, but existing regulations are restrictive. Foreign lawyers cannot practice domestic law or litigation, nor can Brazilian‐licensed lawyers working for foreign firms or partnering with foreign lawyers. This was not always the case, however. Until 1963, there was little regulation of the legal profession. Beginning in 1913, elite US lawyers traveled to Brazil, with some even becoming prominent domestic practitioners. They partnered with local elite lawyers (who maintained their domestic privileges) and served as key brokers for US businesses seeking market entry. Drawing on the elite theory literature, and on ethnographies, interview data, and over 1,000 pages of rare Portuguese and English archival sources, this study's thesis is that sophisticated US and Brazilian legal elites capitalized on the lack of regulation to advance their financial interests, and in the process transformed Brazil's corporate legal sector.     

The legal profession of China in a globalized world: innovations and new challenges

ABSTRACT

The legal profession is undergoing fundamental changes; and this is the case not just in established legal markets. Based on a state-of-the-art sketch, this paper identifies and analyzes the latest innovation initiatives and alternative business models in China’s legal profession. It finds that, propelled by market demands and benefiting from technological advancements, the provision of legal services has become highly versatile today, giving rise to various alternative service providers, especially the rapidly rising online legal service portals. Because they are technically not law firms, the exclusivity requirements on lawyer ownership and legal service provision are not applicable to them. In the meantime, the competition for large corporate clients and lucrative business transactions is fierce and will continue to be so, not only within the club of big Chinese corporate law firms, but also between Chinese law firms and international law firms globally. In this course, some leading big corporate law firms in China are observed to have creatively incorporated key corporate features in running their business and compensating their partners, effectively deviating from the partnership?+?pure legal services regulation. Such market realities question the necessity and effect of the regulatory restrictions on law firm legal form and ownership structure, and call for an agenda for related research in the future.     

Regulating Law Firm Ethics Management: An Empirical Assessment of an Innovation in Regulation of the Legal Profession in New South Wales

The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) was the first jurisdiction to fully deregulate law firm structure and allow alternative business structures in the legal profession. At the same time it also introduced an innovation in regulation of the legal profession, requiring that incorporated legal practices implement ‘appropriate management systems’ for ensuring the provision of legal services in compliance with professional ethical obligations. This paper presents a preliminary empirical evaluation of the impact of this attempt at ‘management‐based regulation’. We find that the NSW requirement that firms self‐assess their ethics management leads to a large and statistically significant drop in complaints. The (self‐assessed) level of implementation of ethics management infrastructure, however, does not make any difference. The relevance of these findings to debates about deprofessionalization, managerialism, and commercialism in the legal profession is discussed, and the NSW approach is distinguished from the more heavy‐handed English legal aid approach to regulating law firm quality management.     

The global restructuring of legal services work? A study of the internationalisation of Australian law firms

The research discussed in this paper examines the ways that an elite group of law firms in Australia are contributing to the globalisation of business and restructuring of legal services work. We examine the distinctive commercial orientation and institutional corporate connections of this group, focusing exclusively on the continuities, breaks and reconversions of the Australian legal profession. Our findings reveal an institutionalised reproduction of strategic practice favouring the elite group of players that generally complies with the political, economic and symbolic power currently wielded by US and UK firms. The data specifically on the recent phase of internationalisation of legal services show Australian lawyers to be of lower status when compared to elite US and European law firms. Using a Bourdieuian method of analysis we explore the extent to which these Australian lawyers' strategic accounts show the potentially coercive and mimetic influence of the economic and symbolic capitals of dominant groups. We apply Sklair's global system theory as a means of interpreting Australian law firms' collective strategic intent, which at the time of this research is to develop a global competitive presence in markets in the Asia Pacific region.     

Researching and Theorizing the Processes of Professional Identity Formation

This paper is concerned with professional identity formation, at both the individual and organizational levels, and the dialectic between individual processes and the social trajectory of organizational reproduction. The research project on which the paper is based was stimulated by the growing concern of United Kingdom legal education institutions and professional bodies with how new entrants to an increasingly diverse profession negotiate the changing demands of a complex stratified and segmented labour market. The paper will give a brief outline of the first stage of a longitudinal study of two cohorts of part-time and full-time students on the Legal Practice Course at a new university in England, (some of whom are now in training with firms) and representatives of the local legal employment market. A report of the research results to date will be set in the context of an exploration of some key theoretical perspectives which inform the field of the profession and of identity development, such as theories of symbolic, linguistic, and cultural capital.     

论法律家与法学家的思维范式

法律家的思维范式表现为“独立型思维”、“保守型思维”、“崇法型思维”等 ,而法学家的思维范式则表现为“批判型思维”、“前瞻型思维”与“人权型思维”等。本文针对我国法律家职业群体培养过程中存在的问题 ,提出在法律教学中可增开案例分析课程、司法伦理课程与其他社会科学的课程。     

论作为"制度"的法学院

法律职业为限制性的职业,目前两大法系主要国家都在制度上将法学院教育作为进入法律职业的第一道门槛;法律的技艺性、智识性和一定的神秘性及其规范特征决定了法律职业必须具备共同的职业素养,凭借法学教授、法学图书资科和法学院的社区生活三要件,制度性法学院而非仅仅作为场所的法学院培育这些素养并促使法律职业共同体形成。我国现实呼唤在制度上确立法学院教育的门槛地位,建设胜任于培育法律人的制度性法学院。     

Are we there yet? Best practices for diversity and inclusion in Australia

ABSTRACT

This article reports on the findings of a pilot research project investigating current best practices, operating within national law firms in Australia, that support women lawyers in their advancement to partnership and other leadership positions. Academic research and professional body reports suggest that current diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives across the private sector are not resulting in significant change to advancement, retention and attrition of women in the legal profession. However, work done by the Women Lawyers’ Association of New South Wales in Australia, through the Data Comparison Project (DCP), indicates that some firms have made better progress than others. Building on the DCP, this article presents the findings of a pilot project involving in-depth interviews with four of the top-achieving national law firms in Australia on gender equity criteria. It finds that these firms are collectively engaging with many of the best practice initiatives for D&I recommended by the current national and international research and scholarship, and in some instances go beyond international best practice. What is apparent, however, is that the current best practices have yet to achieve significant advancement of women, or to break through the glass ceilings that continue to operate for women in large Australian law firms.     

Intraprofessional Competition and Earnings Inequalities Across a Professional Chasm: The Case of the Legal Profession in Québec,Canada

Intraprofessional rivalry has a long history. This article examines earnings disparities as a dimension of intraprofessional competition among avocats and notaires in the civil law system of Québec, Canada. Drawing on two large‐scale surveys and in‐depth interviews with legal professionals, I examine three competing perspectives of earnings inequalities: human capital, social‐symbolic capital, and organizational‐structural explanations. Through this analysis I seek to examine whether similar causal processes shape earnings across the two spheres of legal practice in Québec. The findings of this study clearly demonstrate that these two professional groups are equipped with differential stocks of capital, and conversion rates differ drastically. Avocats receive greater exchange on their investments in human and social‐symbolic capitals. These disparities are most pronounced in sectors of the profession where jurisdictional frictions abound: among notaires and avocats working as solo practitioners and in small firms within competitive urban contexts. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical extensions and future directions for the study of legal professionals in civil law systems and blended jurisdictions.     

Why Methods Matter in European Legal Scholarship

Both in the United States and in Europe, there is a debate on methodology in legal research. Doctrinalists and multidisciplinarians appear to be in different camps fighting over the ‘true nature’ of legal scholarship. We wonder where this renewed attention for methodology is coming from and what is behind it. Should European legal scholars follow certain colleagues in the United States who believe that doctrinal research is dead and should we all engage in law and … research now? If not, does this imply that there is nothing wrong with mainstream European doctrinal legal scholarship? We believe the latter is not the case. Our hypothesis is that an ongoing instrumentalisation of law and legal research decreases the attention for methodology, for theory building, and for keeping enough professional distance to one's object of research. This threatens to result in a creeping process of herd behaviour, in copy pasting the methodology of judicial lawmaking to legal scholarship and in a lack of transparency and methodological justification in scholarly legal publications. What is desperately needed is more reflection on methodology and theory building in European legal scholarship.     

关于我国法律职业人才一体化培养教育的思考

“法律职业人才一体化”培养，有利于向依法治国、建立法制国家迈进。因此，我们应当建立统一的国家法律职业人才资格考试和统一的法律职业实务制度，规范法律职业人才的继续教育制度，建立法律职业人才之间的职业交流制度。     

再论法律职业化与法律职业共同体

随着法律职业化进程的推进,我国现阶段基本形成了法律职业阶层,但并未出现一个法律职业共同体。即便如此,鉴于法治信仰并未真正被培育,现有法律职业阶层仍然存在被异化为“物化”法律职业利益集团的风险。因此,法治信仰的培育既是法律职业化的基本要求,也是形成法律职业共同体的核心元素。     

Innovation in the Australian legal profession

Over the next decades, advances in technology and new business practices will challenge a traditionally conservative legal profession. With a focus on the Australian legal profession, this article explores the nature of the challenges and, in particular, considers whether the challenges pose a threat of disruptive innovation. The article aims to add to understanding of how Australian law firms are responding to the challenges by drawing on empirical data that examines the drivers and inhibitors of innovation in Australian law firms, the areas where Australian legal firms are innovating, and the outcomes of their innovation. The article concludes that there is limited evidence of incumbent displacement and that, gradually, the profession is rising to the challenges.     

司法职业资格考试制度及其相关问题研究

我国司法职业资格考试制度的确立对于提升我国司法职业群体的职业素质和推动司法职业群体的职业化进程具有重要意义.但从司法职业资格考试制度和司法制度以及高等法学教育的关系的维度分析,我国司法职业资格考试的制度设计存在明显缺陷.因此,借鉴国外有关国家的有益经验,进一步完善我国司法职业资格考试制度是十分必要的.