On the Consequences of Defensive Professionalism: Recent Changes in the Legal Labour Process

This study of change in the legal profession argues that governmental policies, combined with economic recession and supply-side considerations, have led to decline in the legal profession's historical performance, and a defensive strategy which preserves the status and earning power of equity partners. Related responses include a drive towards organizational consolidation, a long-term increase in the numbers of salaried solicitors, and fewer non-fee-earning support staff. This involves a shift from external (or occupational) closure regimes, which sanction entry to the profession, to internal (or organizational) mechanisms, which regulate progression through the professional hierarchy. The paper challenges hypotheses of deprofessionalization and managerialization, and lends empirical support to Freidson's continuity thesis whereby reorganization is safeguarding traditional privileges and rewards for certain sections of the profession at the cost of a progressive process of intra-occupational stratification.     

The changing landscape of International Intellectual Property

Legal context This paper explains the changing landscape ofinternational intellectual property. Since the Uruguay Roundnegotiations that led to the TRIPs Agreement, developing countriesand certain groups within industrialised nations have arguedthat the rules needed reform. Economic arguments based on theneed to enhance global welfare are used to justify their demands.Examples of the results they obtained in the last 24 monthsinclude the 2003 WTO Declaration on TRIPs and Public Healthand WIPO's Development Agenda. Key points This paper puts this change of landscape in perspective,explains its foundations and looks at the more important recenteconomic surveys and outlines their main conclusions. It alsodiscusses recent efforts in international organisations andacademic circles to consider intellectual property as part ofa broader picture and the need for countries to develop a morecomprehensive innovation strategy. Practical significance The article will be useful for anyonefollowing developments in multilateral intellectual propertynorm-setting by providing a deeper understanding of the issuesand new levels of discussion.     

Micro-models of criminal careers: A synthesis of the criminal careers and life course approaches via semiparametric mixed poisson regression models,with empirical applications

Much recent research and debate in criminology have centered around how to conceptualize and model longitudinal sequences of delinquent and criminal acts committed by individuals. Two approaches dominate this controversy. One originates in thecriminal careers paradigm, which emphasizes a potentialheterogeneity of offending groups in the general population—thus leading to a distinction between incidence and prevalence of criminal offending, a focus on the onset, persistence, and desistence of criminal careers, and the possibility that criminals are a distinctive group with constant high rates of offending. Another approach places criminal events within a broader context ofstudies of the life course by explicitly substituting the conceptualization of “social events” for that of “criminal careers”. With respect to analytical models, this approach emphasizes a potentialheterogeneity of offenders with respect to order of criminal events from first to second to higher orders and thus suggests an analysis of the “risks” or “hazards” of offending by order of offense. Some extant commentaries on the criminal careers and life course approaches to conceptualizing and modeling longitudinal sequences of delinquent and criminal events committed by individuals have emphasized their differences and incompatibilities. In contrast, we apply recently developed semiparametric mixed Poisson regression techniques to develop conditions under which the two conceptual/modeling approaches are formally equivalent. We also modify the semiparametric mixed Poisson regression model of criminal careers to incorporate information on order of the delinquent/criminal event and develop an empirical application. This modification demonstrates the complementarity of the criminal careers and life course approaches, even though they have somewhat different foci.     

过去三十五年的美国法律文化

科学和技术是社会变革的核心力量,美国过去的35年是一个巨大的秩序重构的过程,社会的每一个领域都发生了眩目的变化,社会变化渗透到法律的每个机理当中,原先确定不变的法律理念受到了进一步的冲击.最显著的表现是增强了美国的个人主义,个人主义构成了民权革命及其副产品的基础,并且被植入法律体系中的每个角落,而且进一步削弱了传统的权威.在过去的35年中,我们生活在一个危险的、充满机遇的、变化着的世界里,社会变化最大程度上意味着法律文化的变化,民众看待法律的方式以及他们从中所欲和所期的东西的变化,民众越来越多地想得到自由的选择和个人权利.这种意志和期望的安静而强大的力量,有意识无意识地撼动了正义之树的根基.     

Agenda building in criminal justice: The case of determinate sentencing

An understanding of policy development, change and implementation is a necessary ingredient in analysis of criminal justice policy. This paper attempts to describe the process of policy formation in criminal justice within the framework, of “Agenda Building.” Through case studies of sentencing reform policy changes in two states, the applicability of the Agenda Building model to the study of criminal justice policy is demonstrated. The argument is advanced that, through the use of such approaches to the study of justice policy change, we will enhance our understanding of the diversity of specific policies and practices which can emerge from an apparently unified reform movement. Further, it is suggested that an enhanced understanding of policy development will allow reformers to better direct and control policy formulation.