Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2024
The scale of the quantitative changes in the legal profession of the United States described by Curran seems to be not unusual in the Western industrialized world. Many countries have similarly experienced large increases in the absolute number of lawyers, the ratio of lawyers to population, and the proportions of comparatively young and inexperienced lawyers and women lawyers. Nevertheless, the United States remains unusual in its high proportion of lawyers in private practice.
I am very much indebted to Richard L. Abel, Alan Paterson, Anne Boigeol, Valerio Pocar, Vittorio Olgiati, Erhard Blankenburg, Ulrike Schultz, Kees Schuyt, Georgina Murray, Charles Crothers, Kahei Rokumoto, Harry Arthurs, Richard Weisman, Fred Zemans, and Luc Huyse for permission to use their material here. I should also like to thank Richard L. Abel for his penetrating comments on an earlier draft of this article.