Regulating Lawyers Through Disciplinary Systems

This book offers comparative analyses on issues in lawyer regulation in England and Wales, Japan, Myanmar, New Zealand and Singapore.

It examines the lawyer disciplinary systems in different jurisdictions through diverse and comparative perspectives. In addition to enriching the literature on legal ethics, contributions also highlight areas for future research regarding the legal and other professions in different jurisdictions and the methodologies that may be applied. Chapters examine common issues faced by lawyer disciplinary systems throughout the world, such as:

• transparency of regulatory outcomes, which varies widely and provides challenges to assessing the effectiveness of lawyer regulatory systems
• whether systems tilt too much toward protecting lawyers and if a move from self-regulation to independent regulators yields better outcomes
• changes in demographics of the legal profession and regulatory changes posing challenges in longitudinal studies of regulatory systems
• disciplining of repeat actors raising questions of the deterrence goals of a regulatory system
• deviation of systems that maintain tight state control over the legal profession from both United Nations and other international norms for lawyer discipline
• the role of pro bono obligations and the discourse around legal ethics

Regulating Lawyers Through Disciplinary Systems will be an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners and regulators of the legal profession, while also appealing to those interested in legal and other professional ethics. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of the Legal Profession.

Kay-Wah Chan is Visiting Professor (part-time and remote) at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. He has written and presented on the Japanese legal profession.

Judith A. McMorrow is a Professor of Law at Boston College Law School, in the United States. She works extensively on comparative professional ethics, including lawyer regulation in both the United States and China.

Avrom Sherr is Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in the United Kingdom. He has provided an international leadership role in exploring the sociology of the legal profession and ethics in professional work. He is the founding editor of the International Journal of the Legal Profession.