One Day Conference: Regulating the Legal Profession
The EU/IMF Programme of Financial Support for Ireland, agreed in December 2010 and revised in July 2011, included commitments on the part of the Government of Ireland ‘...to introduce legislative changes to remove restrictions to trade and competition in sheltered sectors including: the legal profession, establishing an independent regulator for the profession and implementing the recommendations of the Legal Costs Working Group and outstanding Competition Authority recommendations to reduce legal costs...’ (p9).
The Competition Authority published a report in December 2006 on Competition in Professional Services: Solicitors and Barristers. Many of the recommendations directed at the legal professions have already stimulated change from the professions. A Legal Services Regulation Bill was published in October 2011 and has set out the government’s thinking on the establishment of a statutory regulator and related reforms.
This conference will locate possible and proposed reforms to the legal profession in Ireland within the wider context of changes to the provision and regulation of legal services internationally. Panels of internationally distinguished specialists in the regulation of the legal profession will be complemented by discussants from various bodies of the stakeholders with interests in the regulation of the legal profession. The objective is to foster an open and well-informed discussion of the paths to reform of regulation of the legal profession in Ireland.
