Kevin Martin, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, has written an interesting piece about the rise of lawyers as an export commodity. He describes the expertise that international lawyers can bring to global transactions and the benefits this can have for countries playing host to them. However, he also notes several barriers to further expansion in these emerging legal markets:

And the law is one of international trade’s brightest stars. Exports of legal services from the UK — and to countries well beyond the Commonwealth — grew by more than 400 per cent in the decade 1993-2003 to top £2 billion. UK law firms have more than 450 offices in 70 countries across the globe.

The potential for further growth is significant. But there is a familiar obstacle in many emerging markets — protectionism. This includes the outright prohibition against any practice of law by a foreign lawyer — a prohibition that still exists, for example, in India, South Korea and the Philippines.

Although vested interests in restricting competition are part of the reason; fear and a misunderstanding of what the advent of foreign lawyers would mean also play a part. Concerns include the loss of jobs by local lawyers, poaching of the best local lawyers by foreign law firms, unscrupulous or ill-trained foreign practitioners fleecing unsuspecting consumers and worries about alien influence in the justice system.

What protectionists need to bear in mind here is that international lawyers aren’t really in competition with domestic legal practitioners — unless private international law (and not conveyancing or criminal law) really forms the mainstay of their practice! Global transactions are in an entirely different league, with disputes much more likely to be litigated in legally developed jurisdictions than local courts. The presence of an international legal community is thus unlikely to cause harm to the local profession. If anything, it’s going to catalyse development of the domestic legal system and increase the amount of available work for established practitioners.