Regulating Lawyers: North American Perspectives and Problematics

• Author: Richard F. Devlin
• Position: Richard Devlin FRSC is a Professor and the Associate Dean Research at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada. Most recently he has been a coeditor of three books Regulating Judges: Beyond Independence and Accountability (2016), Lawyers' Ethics And Professional Regulation 3d (2017), and Canada and the Rule of Law: ...
• Pages: 401-407

Regulating Lawyers: North American

Perspectives and Problematics

1

R

ICHARD

F. D

EVLIN

*

In most modern societies, lawyers—both individually and as a collective

profession—are identified as playing significant social, economic, cultural,

and political roles. Lawyers are implicated in almost every aspect of our

lives: they frequently influence and draft legislation that regulates—among

various other things—the roadways and our behaviour on them, how our

houses are built and maintained, and the conditions under which we can

offer our labour; lawyers provide advice on multiple matters including family

relations, exchange relations, taxation matters, domestic trade, and

international trade; they help us establish relationships (both familial and

commercial) and help us resolve disputes when they break down; when social

relations fray, they litigate on behalf of citizens and commercial entities; they

defend or prosecute alleged criminals; they advocate for the equality of

rights for disadvantaged and minority groups; they protect us from abuses of

police power and from state interference in our private lives (and advise the

state how to successfully interfere in our private lives). In short, lawyers

exercise enormous power and influence.

Because lawyers have access to and exercise such significant power, it is

often said that they have a social contract with society. In return for the

privilege of being a lawyer, the responsibility of every lawyer, and the

profession, is to promote and protect the public interest. Others go further

and claim that because of their privileged status, lawyers and the legal

profession are fiduciaries.

The inevitable questions, of course, are as follows: how do we ensure that

lawyers fulfill their side of the bargain, and how do we guarantee that they

will faithfully and effectively live up to their fiduciary obligations? Do we

adopt a “trust us” approach, or do we establish norms, institutions, and

procedures to frame and, where necessary, enforce lawyers’ obligations?

* Richard Devlin FRSC is a Professor and the Associate Dean Research at the Schulich

School of Law, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada. Most recently he has been a co-

editor of three books Regulating Judges: Beyond Independence and Accountability (2016), Lawyers’

Ethics And Professional Regulation 3d (2017), and Canada and the Rule of Law: 150 Years After

Confederation (2017).

1. This mini symposium grows out of a panel discussion sponsored by the North American

Consortium on Legal Education in Monterrey, Mexico in March 2015. The papers are

dedicated to the memory of Steve Zamora, the “founding father” of the North American

Consortium of Legal Education, and a lifelong champion for the cause of greater North

American co-operation and collaboration.

THE YEAR IN REVIEW

AN ANNUAL PUBLICATION OF THE ABA/SECTION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

PUBLISHED IN COOPERATION WITH

SMU DEDMAN SCHOOL OF LAW