ABSTRACT
Professional ideals are both more and less enduring than the rules of conduct to which they give rise. They can survive and evolve through changes in those rules and in conditions of practice, as the ideals of avocats have evolved from the ancien regime through the nineteenth century to this one. The state and the European Union will regulate avocats in new ways, but that process has proceeded in France, not just since Napoleon, but since Philip the Hardy's ordinance of 1274. Although the large corporations that many avocats aspire to assist in their business dealings often have symbiotic relationships with the state, they also resist it when necessary. Independence from other avocats will also come under pressure. Salaried avocats working in teams within large firms and economically dependent on their superiors will find it hard to make their own professional decisions. The ideal of the virtuous avocat, lastly, is perhaps too vague to be easily eradicated.
