ABSTRACT
Regulation of the legal profession is pervasive. In every common law country, lawyers operate within a complex series of formal and informal norms that determine, inter alia, who is admitted to the Bar, the extent of competition permitted by non-lawyers, when lawyers’ conduct is lawful and/or ethical and when it is not. Legislatures, courts and regulatory bodies such as law societies impose requirements and restrictions on the practice of law, and sanction lawyers who violate them.
