ABSTRACT
The various French legal professions promote what could be called a division of ethical labor. The justification for having separate legal professions is supposed to be that they assure the public of competent specialized services, although they may also impede competition and force clients to hire several professionals for one matter. From the profession's viewpoint, the system should promote esprit de corps and provide protection for its core market, albeit limiting its opportunities and confronting it with powerful competitors for work at the margins. The multiplicity of legal professions has one more advantage for avocats: it attracts to the less prestigious professions much of the abuse that society traditionally levels at lawyers. Although one might think the multiplication of professions merely reflects the French penchant for classifying everything from hotels to authors, it does have practical consequences. The notaries' professional bodies seem to have kept tighter control over their relatively few members than did those of the more independent avocats.
