Competitive Restrictions in Legal Professions

Regulation of the legal professions, including self-regulation, typically involves many restrictions on entry and professional conduct. Certain restrictions may be a remedy to market failures and may also be based on distributional or paternalistic motives. But other restrictions can be based on rent-seeking and achieve cartellike effects. The major policy challenge is to identify and remove the restrictions which are unnecessary or disproportionate to achieve public interest goals. Competition law and advocacy can play a major role in this respect, either by challenging anti-competitive activity as illegal or advocating changes to laws and regulations. The establishment of an independent, transparent and accountable regulatory authority for legal services markets merits serious consideration. Among others, it could ensure that: i) entry restrictions are eased or eliminated where they are not related to quality