For several years legal professions across the world have, to varying degrees, been undergoing dramatic changes as a result of a range of forces such as globalization, diversification and changes in regulation. In many jurisdictions the extent of these transformations have led to a process of professional fragmentation and generated uncertainty at institutional, organisational and individual levels about the nature and future of legal professionalism. As a result legal education is in flux in many of jurisdictions including the United States, the UK and Australia, with further effects in other Common Law and some Civil law countries. The situation in the UK exemplifies the sense of uncertainty and crisis, with a growing number of pathways into law; an increasing surplus of law graduates to graduate entry positions and most recently proposals for reform of legal education and training by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). This collection addresses both current and historical approaches showing that some problems which appear to be modern are endemic, that there are still some important prospects for change and that policy issues may be more important than the interests of lawyers and educators. This makes this volume a source of interest to lawyers, law students, academic and policy makers as well as the discerning public. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the Legal Profession.

The world's legal professions have undergone dramatic changes in the 30 years since publication of the landmark three-volume Lawyers in Society, which launched comparative sociological studies of lawyers. This is the first of two volumes in which scholars from a wide range of disciplines, countries and cultures document and analyse those changes. The present volume presents reports on 46 countries, with broad coverage of North America, Western Europe, Latin America, Asia, Australia, North Africa and the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and former communist countries. These national reports address: the impact of globalisation and neoliberalism on national legal professions (the relationship of lawyers and their professional associations to the state and tensions between state and citizenship); changes in lawyer demography (rapidly growing numbers and the profession's efforts to retain control, the entry of women and obstacles to full gender equality, ethnic diversity); legal education (the proliferation of institutions and pedagogic innovation); the regulation of lawyers; structures of production (especially the growth of large firms and the impact of technology and paraprofessionals); the distribution of lawyers across roles; and access to justice (state-funded legal aid and pro-bono services). The juxtaposition of the reports reveals the dramatic transformations of professional rationales, labour markets, and working practices and the multiple contingencies of the role of lawyers in societies experiencing increasing juridification within a new geopolitical order.

We are currently witnessing an unprecedented transformation in the legal profession and legal education. The Legal Services Act 2007 and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 have both enabled and necessitated dramatic structural changes to the profession, as well as impacting on its ethos and ethicality. The recent Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) promises similarly dramatic change to the provision of legal education, reflecting the shifting landscape of both the legal professional market and Higher Education in general. These transformative changes bring both exciting opportunities and challenges with which everyone involved in the law - from University lecturers, to Senior Partners in leading law firms, to the judiciary - must grapple. This edited collection comprises a selection of papers presented at the 2nd conference of CEPLER, Birmingham Law School's Centre for Professional Legal Education and Research. The aim of the Conference, and thus this collection, was to bring together leading academic scholars, senior figures from professional practice, policy-makers, and representatives of the regulatory authorities, to reflect on the key issues arising from this transformative moment. As such, this volume of essays covers diverse ground, from curriculum development to professional theory, enriched and enhanced by the range of backgrounds and perspectives of its contributors.