In 2007 a quiet but cataclysmic event occurred in the legal world: the enactment of the UK Legal Services Act. It enabled non-lawyers to own and run legal practices. The shocks have since been felt around the world. Using forensic analysis, Snyder dissects how the legal profession has tried, and failed, to protect its monopoly as its world turned upside ... Read moredown. And in telling the stories of those involved, she powerfully brings it all alive.
John A. Flood, Griffith University The global acceptance of MDPs and ABS is undeniable. Laura Snyder has added her voice to those who call on the organized American legal profession to look forward and not backward regarding the business associations permitted to lawyers. She correctly concludes that unless the American legal profession acts soon, it will be alone in the world, inhibiting the capacity of American lawyers to compete in rapidly expanding global markets. Failing to act, the American legal profession will once again see change flood over the walls it erects in its misguided efforts to remain the same.
James E. Moliterno, Washington and Lee University This is an optimistic book. It sets out clearly and persuasively the case for opening up the legal market and why it should be seen as exciting, not threatening, for lawyers and clients alike. Alternative structures are not a panacea and are only a means to an end. But, by giving lawyers and others more means to deliver legal services, we should move closer to the end of democratizing the law.
Neil Rose, Legal Futures Show Less