Too Many Lawyers?: The future of the legal profession

The topic of "too many lawyers" is both timely and timeless. The future make up and performance of the legal profession is in contest, challenged by new entrants, technology and the demand for transparency; at the same time, lawyers long have participated in contests over professional boundaries. In this book, we take up several fundamental questions about the question of whether there are "too many lawyers". What do we mean by "too many"? Is there a surplus of lawyers? What sort of lawyers are and will be needed? How best can we discern this? These questions and more are addressed here in scholarly articles presented at the Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law (Spain) by some of the best researchers in the field. The collection, witha chapter by Prof. Richard L. Abel, addresses methodological, normative and policy questions regarding the number of lawyers in particular countries and worldwide, while connecting this phenomenon to political, social, economic, historical, cultural and comparative contexts. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the Legal Profession .

Introduction: Too many lawyers?
Eyal Katvan, Carole Silver & Neta Ziv

1. What does and should influence the number of lawyers?
Richard L. Abel

2. Too many lawyers? Or should lawyers be doing other things?
Carrie Joan Menkel-Meadow

3. Unauthorized practice of law and the production of lawyers
Neta Ziv

4. The flood of US lawyers: natural fluctuation or professional climate change?
Bruce A. Green

5. It's the law schools stupid! Explaining the continuing increase in the number of lawyers
Herbert M. Kritzer

6. Coping with the consequences of `too many lawyers': securing the place of international graduate law students
Carole Silver

7. Effects of the acceleration in the number of lawyers in Israel
Limor Zer-Gutman

8. The new knowledge economy and the transformation of the law discipline
Margaret Thornton

9. Is access to the profession access to justice? Lessons from Canada
Avner Levin & Asher Alkoby

10. The `overcrowding the profession' argument and the professional melting pot
Eyal Katvan

11. Setting the limits: who controls the size of the legal profession in Japan?
Kay-Wah Chan

12. Legal education in Spain: challenges and risks in devising access to the legal professions
Laura Carballo Pineiro

13. The virtue of low barriers to becoming a lawyer: promoting liberal and democratic values
Russell G. Pearce & Sinna Nasseri

14. `I love my American job': professional prestige in the Indian outsourcing industry and global consequences of an expanding legal profession
Swethaa Ballakrishnen