Regulating the Legal Profession conference
A conference on the theme ‘Regulating the Legal Profession’ was recently hosted by the UCD School of Law, UCD Centre for Regulation & Governance and UCD Centre for Commercial Law. The keynote speaker, Professor Lynn Mather of the University of Buffalo, addressed the challenges and changes affecting the legal profession internationally, and the significance of these changes for the independence of the legal profession. She pointed to the importance of professional independence from the state for legitimating the commitment of the state to the rule of law, but indicated that this did not preclude the state from having a role in overseeing professional self-regulation to provide reassurance that the public interest was served. Other speakers included Professor Julian Webb of the University of Warwick, Professor John Flood of the University of Westminster and Isolde Goggin, chair of the Competition Authority (and Isolde’s paper has subsequently been published by the Competition Authority http://www.tca.ie/EN/Promoting-Competition/Presentations--Papers/Competition-and-the-Structure-of-the-Legal-Profession.aspx). Discussants to the papers included Michael Collins SC, Adjunct Professor of Law at UCD, Kevin O’Higgins, former Deputy President of the Law Society of Ireland, and Emer Hunt, consultant at Matheson, Ormsby Prentice and Lecturer in Law at UCD. It was clear from discussions that there were divergent views amongst speakers, discussants and participants from the floor about the extent to which the Legal Services Regulation Bill represents a challenge to the independence of the legal profession in Ireland and there was also much debate about different models for promoting competition and linking independent regulation to professional self regulation and also concerning issues of professional and university education in law.
Professor Lynn Mather
