Liberalisation and the Legal Profession in England and Wales

Abstract

This article explores the process and impact of liberalisation on the legal profession in England and Wales. Liberalisation brings a tendency to consider the profession in market-focused terms, with the professional–client relationship reconfigured in overtly economic fashion as constituting the interaction of supply and demand. The article examines the past and present structure of the profession, arguments for liberalisation and manifestations of liberalisation efforts. Having identified the distinctive dynamics of supply and demand within legal services markets, the article considers the potential implications, both immediate and in broader societal terms, of reconceptualising the legal profession in this manner.

Twining’s Tower and the Challenges of Making Law a Humanistic Discipline

“…The alienating tendencies within contemporary higher education have been replicated in the legal services industry. Disconcerting trends include the McDonaldization, commodification, corporatization, excessive specialization and bureaucratic routinization of legal services; and the privatization of legal education (Sommerlad & Ors 2015b;Sommerlad & Ors 2020;Dunne 2021). Arguably, these trends render de facto redundant much of the common platform of legal knowledge underpinning academic and profession legal education.…”