The next TOTM symposium “Unlocking the Law: Deregulating the Legal Profession” is right around the corner on Monday and Tuesday of next week. We’ve got a wonderful group of participants confirmed, including:
- Hans Bader
- Benjamin Barton
- James Cooper
- Robert Crandall
- Nuno Garoupa
- Gillian Hadfield
- Bill Henderson
- Dan Katz
- Bruce Kobayashi
- George Leef
- Jon Macey
- Tom Morgan
- Walter Olson
- Richard Painter
- Eric Rasmusen
- Eric Talley
Several of the TOTM bloggers will also be participating both in the posts and comments. Some questions the Symposium will consider are:
- Should lawyer licensing be abolished?
- What alternative regulatory approaches or structures should be considered?
- What would a deregulated market for legal services look like?
- Does lawyer regulation raise issues different from those of licensing and regulating other professions?
- Does delegating to lawyers the power to restrict the right to practice law violate the antitrust laws?
- What are the First Amendment implications of regulating what non-lawyers can say about the law?
- To what extent can national or global competition alone break down barriers to law practice even without deregulation?
- What are the implications of deregulation of the profession for law schools?
We hope to see you next week.
I brought the first class action against the Bar to hold lawyers accountable to comply with the antitrust laws–Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar decided by the US Supreme Court in 1975. Since then, state bars have only increased their anticompetitive intrusion into the legal practice, to the detriment of consumers and businesses. I hope this workshop comes up with some solutions to reverse this unfortunate trend. LEW GOLDFARB
Seriously? You’re not even touching on the issue of paralegals, e.g., licensing?