Description
Book SynopsisToward the end of the twentieth century, English lawyers enjoyed widespread respect and prosperity. They had survived criticism by practitioners and academics and a Royal Commission enquiry, but the final decade witnessed profound changes. First the Conservatives sought to apply laissez-faire principles to the profession. Then Labour transformed the legal aid scheme it had created half a century earlier. At the same time, the profession confronted cumulative changes in higher education and women''s aspirations, internal and external competition, and dramatic fluctuations in demand. This book analyses the politics of professionalism during that tumultuous decade, the struggles among individual producers (barristers, solicitors, foreign lawyers, accountants) their associations, consumers (individual and corporate, public and private) and the state to shape the market for legal services by deploying economic, political and rhetorical resources (including changing conceptions of profession
Trade Review'Abel has long been the most learned and perceptive commentator on the English legal profession...This is an immensely important book...' * Geoffrey Bindman, the Law Society Gazette, 11 December 2003 *
'I pay fulsome tribute...to Abel's remarkable grasp of the subject... Anyone interested in the history of the English legal profession is ...indebted to him...' * Michael Zander QC *
...Professor Abel's ... complex theorisation of the recent history of the legal profession is drawn from extraordinarily detailed source work. The result is a rich critical history which will prove invaluable for students of the English and Welsh legal profession. At the same time the fact that the analysis is set in the context of underlying social and political change renders it an important contribution to our understanding of the ongoing reconfiguration of state and citizenship. * Dr Hilary Sommerlad *
...Professor Abel once again shows his absolute mastery of the subject area, of the background, of the theory and of the facts. This is a book for researchers, for serious students, for historians and policy makers and for practitioners with a view beyond the immediate. It will be essential reading for anybody who wishes to comment on a crucial decade in the development of the English legal profession...The final chapter brings an overall analysis with strong, unremitting and characteristic comment from the most important commentator on the English legal professional scene. No one can detract from the comprehensive majesty of the agglomeration or the certainty of its analytic touch. * Professor Avrom Sherr *
Table of Contents1. The Legal Profession in English Politics ; 2. An Unlikely Revolutionary ; 3. Halting the Tide ; 4. Reflecting Society? ; 5. Defending the Temple ; 6. Controlling Competition ; 7. Conservatives Cut Legal Aid Costs ; 8. Labour Ends Legal Aid As We Know It ; 9. Serving Two Masters: The Dilemma of Self-Regulation ; 10. Governing a Fractious Profession ; 11. The Future of Legal Professionalism
