THE STATE-LAWYER RELATIONSHIP IN ENGLAND AND WALES

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/S1521-6136(2001)0000003005
Pages25-50
Published date08 November 2001
Date08 November 2001
AuthorGerard Hanlon
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THE STATE-LAWYER RELATIONSHIP
IN ENGLAND AND WALES
Gerard Hanlon
ABSTRACT
The state has been a crucial influence on the legal profession in England
and Wales. This research examines the nature of this impact over the past
eighty years or so. It argues that to understand the legal profession we
have to analyse the state, understand what the state’s goals are and how
they have been set. The recent past provides a good example of why this
is important and I argue that the radical restructuring of the profession
in recent years can only be understood in light of the major transition the
U.K. state has undergone.
INTRODUCTION
The legal world in England and Wales is changing rapidly. After a period
spanning several hundred years wherein solicitors and other groups had worked
out a somewhat uneasy relationship of jurisdictional stability, all has changed.1
Central to this change has been the state. This paper aims to examine how the
changing policies of the state impacted upon the solicitors’ profession in
England and Wales. It will suggest that although the state is not the only factor
in this change (and arguably it may not even be the most important factor, see,
for example Hanlon, 1997), it has been central to the emerging fragmentation
of the profession. Two ideological beliefs have fuelled the changing nature of
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Legal Professions: Work, Structure and Organization, pages 25–50.
© 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
ISBN: 0-7623-0800-1
the state’s actions: (1) a belief that for the U.K. to remain an important economic
player internationally, it must embrace the global, flexible economy and become
more entrepreneurial, and (2) to embrace this enterprise economy, it has to roll
back the state or, more accurately, the welfare state and lessen the burden it
places on capital (Jessop et al., 1985, 1987). Such policies have split the solic-
itors’ profession because they simultaneously involve downgrading legal aid
and promoting international finance capital and their respective professional
advisers. However, before examining the impact of the state on the profession
it is necessary to paint more detail on this broad canvas.
FORDISM, SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
AND THE LAWYERS
The inter and post war western world has largely been a social democratic one,
that is, for much of this century there was a shift away from the market place
as a means of allocating resources. This transition was largely financed by the
post war boom but it would be misleading to suggest that the boom was solely
responsible. Hayek (1944) had argued that the decline of a laissez-faire2market
economy had been ongoing since the late 19th century. The emergence in the
1930s of what has commonly been called Fordism (see Lipietz, 1987) hastened
its end. Fordism was built on three foundation stones and grafted onto Western
Europe after World War Two. These were: (1), a commitment to high wages
and mass consumption; (2) the mass production of goods largely destined for
national markets; and (3) the emergence of a welfare state and an interven-
tionist government with full employment as its main objective. Although initially
treated with a great deal of caution by the Conservative Party, such principles
quickly became uncontested in British politics which settled down to a period
of consensus that lasted until the 1960s (see Gamble, 1994; Kavanagh, 1990;
Jacques, 1983).
The emergence of a society where resources were not simply allocated via
the market proved, in time, to be a good thing for many professionals because
many of these resources were to be allocated by them. After all, it was services
such as health, education, welfare, access to justice and so forth that were
distributed on this non-market basis. Despite this long term benefit, initially
many professionals opposed the introduction of these non-market schemes. For
example, the British Medical Association (BMA) vehemently opposed the
creation of the National Health Service (NHS) (see Hennessy, 1993, pp. 132–144)
and lawyers were reluctant to endorse the state financed legal aid system
(Goreily, 1996).
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26 GERARD HANLON

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