Lawyers face competition crunch

The view that many lawyers care more about the cars they can afford than upholding the rule of law is partly responsible for the unprecedented attention the profession is receiving around the world from competition authorities, a leading international lawyer claimed at the conference.

Speaking at a session on the challenges of competition at the referral bar, former South African Bar Council chairman Malcolm Wallis said that while the profession told the authorities that its role in areas such as human rights and the rule of law means it needs to be treated as a special case, 'a lot of lawyers don't give a damn about these things'.

As a result, the profession should not be surprised when the authorities view law firms as businesses when it comes to competition, he said, adding that they are mainly concerned with what is routine advisory work.

Lawyers have to accept that 'what we do a lot of the time is not special'.

Mr Wallis said barristers have not helped themselves.

'We try to generate a mystique about the bar which infuriates attorneys [solicitors] and it is perceived as a device for enhancing the marketability and costs of our services,' he said.

'There is an element of truth in that.'

He noted that competition authorities tend to generalise the referral bar with the legal profession as a whole, and the legal profession with other professions.

'We have not sufficiently articulated the reasons why that [thinking] cannot be applied,' he said.

The Bar Council of Ireland's IBA representative, Frank Clarke, agreed that 'we shouldn't assume that the competition authorities don't have a point'.

As in the UK and elsewhere, the Irish professions are currently under the microscope.

But, he said, 'a pure competition approach' to the law 'has been shown not to work'.

He pointed to the experience of Irish solicitors, who ten years ago relaxed their advertising rules under pressure from the Irish Competition Authority, only to tighten them again this year because they were seen to have contributed to the growth of a so-called compensation culture.

Speaking after the session, English Bar Council chairman David Bean QC rejected the idea that the profession was the author of its own misfortune.

'The pattern is the same throughout the world,' he said.

'Competition authorities identify what they see as a departure from letting people organise their businesses as they want.

So we have to justify why we do that.'

Neil Rose