After the International Legal Ethics Conference IV at Stanford Law School

(Thanks to Business Ethics)
For me one of the highlights of my participation at ICLEC IV conference was hearing Anthony Davis speak. Anthony is a long-time transplanted English lawyer to New York where he is a partner in Hinshaw & Culbertson. His practice involves advising lawyers on professional responsibility and risk management. Among US lawyers Anthony is one of a rare breed who looks at and thinks about what is happening elsewhere in the world. The Legal Services Act has not escaped his attention. He has commented trenchantly on what it could mean for US lawyers.

In my session Anthony appealed for a new form of regulation for the US legal profession. Instead of a plurality of regulators--bar associations, federal agencies, etc--he called for a single national regulator. It would not be part of government but Congress would have to initiate it. It seems so simple.

He even borrows from the British the idea of a separate or special category of regulator for the large multistate or global law firms. See the Smedley Review.

The American Lawyer has just published his talk which you can read here.

PS. My friend, Julian Webb, has some interesting posts on different parts of the same conference at hEaD space.

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