ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Discussions regarding the ‘flooding’ of the legal profession have often focused
on issues of jurisprudence and legal culture (how people resolve disputes), accessibility to legal
education (growth in the number of law schools), social and cultural factors (the status of the
profession) and structural barriers to professional entry (how difficult it is to become a
lawyer). In this paper I discuss the increasing number of lawyers in Israel (now the highest
per capita in developed countries) in reference to an additional factor: the most extensive
rules regarding unauthorized practice of law, strictly guarded and enforced by the Israeli
Bar Association. In Israeli society law has increasingly become an accepted forum for
resolving private and public disputes. At the same time, any kind of activity entailing
provision of legal advice, legal documentation or representation is restricted to lawyers only
– thus entry into the profession becomes the only way to take part and become engaged in
the field of legal services.
