Reforming American Legal Education and Legal Practice: Rethinking Licensing Structures and the Role of Nonlawyers in Delivering and Financing Legal Services

Details

Author(s):
Publish Date:
December 31, 2013
Publication Title:
Legal Ethics
Format:
Journal Article Volume 16 Page(s) 243
Citation(s):
  • Deborah L. Rhode, Reforming American Legal Education and Legal Practice: Rethinking Licensing Structures and the Role of Nonlawyers in Delivering and Financing Legal Services, 16 Legal Ethics 243 (2013).
Related Organization(s):

Abstract

She concentrates on responses to the ‘crisis’ that currently confronts the American legal profession and legal education—including the increasing cost of legal services, the threat to lawyer income and the oversupply of law graduates. Rhode regards the response by the American Bar Association (ABA) through its Ethics 20/20 Commission as lacking innovation and achieving only modest reform. Surveying other countries’ efforts at opening the provision of some traditional legal services to non-lawyers and outside investment in law practices, she argues that the US ‘is likely to lag behind other nations in its capacity to provide cost effective legal services’. She also proposes greater diversity in the options available for legal education.