The legal profession is resisting fundamental reform and is tied to an antiquated business model that is not in the public interest, Competition Authority chairman Bill Prasifka said today.
In an address to the Irish Centre for European Law in Dublin today, Mr Prasifka said the current self-regulatory arrangements give priority to the interests of the legal establishment over the welfare of consumers.
While the Bar Council and the Law Society had undertaken some reforms highlighted in the Competition Authority's report on the legal profession, the most important recommendations have yet to be taken on board, he said.
In particular Mr Prasifka pointed to the Bar Council's self-imposed rule that barristers must be self-employed and the resistance to the establishment a new profession of conveyancers.
"Both restrictions arise out of a conservative institutional bias unwilling to recognise that services and professions must be allowed to adapt to modern conditions in order to flourish.
"This bias towards the status quo, which favours those already in the profession, illustrates how self-regulation of the legal profession is not in the public interest," Mr Prasifka said.
"Rather than being wedded to a particular business form from another era, the Bar Council should modernise its thinking, embrace greater flexibility and seek to ensure that ethical rules are observed by a variety of business forms" he said.
