Contesting Professionalism: Legal Aid and Nonlawyers in England and Wales

Professions are granted a form of cartel that enables them to charge more than would arise in a free market on the assumption that they provide better quality and are more trustworthy than free-market actors would be. The theoretical assumption that lawyers are more competent than nonlawyers has given rise to significant formal protections for professions in many jurisdictions. Two testable propositions arise from this theory: (1) lawyers cost more, but (2) they deliver higher quality. It is a testing of these twin propositions that is the subject of this article, with well-triangulated data and a deeper understanding of the theoretical differences between lawyers and nonlawyers.     

Two Schools of Legal Idealism: A Positivist Introduction*

Abstract. The author focuses his attention on two schools of legal idealism: the so‐called Sheffield School and the “discourse ethics” school. In order to emphasize the valuable facets of each school, the author analyzes four different points: (1) the claim to correctness as a necessary feature of law, (2) the connection between correctness and validity, (3) the qualifying or classifying status of this connection, (4) and the desirability of adopting the “Radbruch’s Formula.” Finally, the author analyzes the weaknesses of each theory. **     

Legal Paternalism and Legal Moralism: Devlin, Hart and Ten*

Abstract
H. L. A. Hart in his Law, Liberty, and Morality (1963) defended the view that legal paternalism and legal moralism can be clearly distinguished from each other. Hart also stated that while legal moralism is always unacceptable, paternalistic laws are often justifiable. In this paper it is argued that Hart held the right view for the wrong reasons. Hart defended legal paternalism by claiming, against J. S. Mill, that for various psychological reasons individuals do not know their own interests best. It will be shown in the paper that if this view is taken, it is impossible to reject legal moralism. The fact that paternalism is sometimes justifiable while moralism is not can be more firmly founded on a distinction made by C. L. Ten (1971). Ten's point is that in matters which concern only the individuals themselves, their actions cannot be legitimately restricted by appeals to the consequences of their action alone. Paternalistic control can be justified only if the decision-making abilities of the controlled individual are temporarily diminished.     

Legal Truths and Falsities*

This paper has a two‐pronged thesis. First, laws should be understood as making factual claims about the moral order. Second, the truth or falsity of these claims depends as much on the content of the law as on whether the lawmaker has political authority. In particular, laws produced by legitimate authorities are successful as laws when they guide subjects' behavior by giving subjects authoritative reasons for action. This paper argues that laws produced by legitimate authorities accomplish this task (i) by being on their own sufficient to change the moral state of affairs, which (ii) thereby generates for people new moral reasons to act that they can read right off of the legislation.     

History is Past Politics: A Critique of the Legal Skills Movement in England and Wales

In the past thirty years legal practice changed so significantly that afundamental response was demanded of legal education. Making legalskills a compulsory component in the vocational stage was an incompleteresponse. It addressed the technical competence of lawyers but leftsignificant gaps in professional preparation in terms of content andmethodology. By focusing on the educational and pedagogic implicationsof the skills curriculum the clinical movement contributed to these gaps.The Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education andConduct has facilitated the consideration of a curriculum organizedaround a more imaginative integration of legal skills in order to beginto tackle these failings and prepare lawyers for the new economic andsocial challenges facing them. Solutions, however, must permeate everystage of legal education, requiring unprecedented levels of co-operationand interaction between the profession and the academy.     

Custodial Legal Assistance and Notification of the Right to Silence in France: Legal Cosmopolitanism and Local Resistance

Until the enactment of the Law of 14 April 2011, suspects questioned by the police in France were entitled to meet their lawyer only once in the first 24 h of custodial interrogation and only for 30 min, and were not notified of their right to silence. Extrapolating from the exceptionalism of the pre-April 14 regime of custodial interrogation, this article challenges the position of the fast growing cosmopolitanism of modern legal systems and argues that when one moves from rough generalisations to specific contextual inquiries, a more nuanced picture of the cosmopolitan tendencies of modern legal systems may emerge. This article also demonstrates that legal cosmopolitanism can be a powerful force for legal reform. The April 14 legislation was introduced quickly as a result of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights against the backdrop of two-century incremental development of French criminal procedure in this domain. This contrast lends itself to translating the April 14 reforms as a result of cosmopolitan pressures coming from outside the national legal system rather than cosmopolitan attitudes spontaneously generated from within. The article illustrates that external cosmopolitan pressures go hand in hand with local resistance, that legal nationalism underpins local resistance and that resistance fluctuates depending on the institution at the receiving end of cosmopolitan pressures. It concludes that indigenous cosmopolitan attitudes, generated through a renewed emphasis on comparative law, can better accommodate resistance.