For years now, whenever American lawyers have caught the slightest whiff of government trespassers encroaching on their turf, they've begun baying like a pack of bloodhounds hot on the trail of an escaped convict. A proposal floated by the Securities and Exchange Committee requiring lawyers to "report out" misconduct by clients who refuse to take their counsel's advice was denounced as an Orwellian plot to transform lawyers into government snitches. Efforts to open up the profession to outside competition by allowing nonlawyers to perform certain tasks was viewed as apostasy and beaten back. The profession's open hostility to outside oversight and competition led one commentator to label it the last of the medieval guilds.
But a series of sweeping reforms the British government announced recently may point the way to a radically different future for the legal profession. In an extensive white paper, the government proposes doing away with several centuries-old prerogatives of British lawyers. The proposed reforms would allow the government to license "alternative business structures" for law firms, including outside ownership by private investors and stock exchange listings. The proposed changes would also allow firms to appoint nonlawyers as full partners. The government also plans to strip the profession of the ability to police misconduct, setting up an Office of Legal Complaints which nonlawyers could staff.
The reforms are the result of an ongoing effort to make the British legal system more consumer-friendly.