Lobbying Legal Profession
Since law touches all aspects of life, legal education is a plus in virtually every career. You need to prove to potential employers that your legal education is a bonus to their organization. Lawyers can market themselves successfully on a regular basis this way, using persuasion, persuasive oral communication skills, and knowledge of the future position. Plan to sit down with a consultant and dedicate time to this important decision. Charlatan, Sigrid. 2016. Organising counter-expertise: critical professional communities in transnational governance. In Die Organisation der Expertengesellschaft, ed. Staffan Furusten and Andreas Werr, 130-118. London, New York: Routledge. Why bother when the European system of lobbying regulation is struggling to make lawyers` lobbying activities transparent? Or that bar associations in the US have played a more proactive role than in the EU? The conflict, real or perceived, between professional rules and lobbying regulation undermines transparency and effectively frustrates efforts to build citizens` trust (including competitors of lawyers in the consulting sector) in good governance and the rule of law. Despite the importance of the issue, law firms and the relationship between bar association rules and lobbying regulation have received little academic attention (see also Greenwood and Dreger, 2013, 147-148).
Of course, it is still questionable whether there really is such a thing as a lobbyist lawyer. Are the roles of lawyer and lobbyist compatible enough to be mixed? My answer is a reserved “yes” because the contours of a lobbyist lawyer are hard to see. The main feature of this movement oscillating between the two roles is that, first, unlike non-legal colleagues, lobbyist lawyers present their knowledge to the decision-maker primarily as legal experts, coding clients` political interests into the technocratic language of law. The second feature is that, in turn, unlike their non-legal colleagues, they prevent the disclosure of lobbying details under the EUTR regime by redefining it as a defence group subject to solicitor-client privilege. In the first case, lobbyists take their clients away from the political decision-making process by providing seemingly general technical legal expertise. In the second case, they place clients in a zone of anonymity offered by traditional legal services. This win-win situation, I conclude, is essentially what distinguishes the lawyer-lobbyist as a single actor from both the typical lobbyist and the conventional lawyer. The NBC`s decision is important because it opens up a new political space to articulate an alternative vision of the governance problem and changes the field itself. It represents the seed of what Quack calls “counter-expertise,” where an alternative proposition emerges from the highly united professional community and knowledge that has supported the dominant political paradigm (Quack 2016, 104). It remains to be seen whether such a decision will be made in the interest of selfish commodification and management of the profession, or as something to further support ethical behavior in the face of the dominant professional paradigm.
It is interesting to note that the Commission has not commented publicly on this issue. Instead, the EP insisted that law firms fulfil their obligations under the EUTR. It recognises the role played by national bar associations in setting professional standards, but encourages the CCBE to keep the issue on the agenda. It also reminds the bar associations that it is in the interest of the profession to ensure that ethical rules are not abused in order to avoid publication of the required information and that `withholding information is limited exclusively to what the law objectively allows` (EP 2017, paragraph 19). In addition to professional policy, the CCBE has also contributed to the development of rules at national level. As many law firms are based in Brussels and their lawyers working in Brussels are members of the Belgian Bars, three local Bar Associations – the Brussels Bar Association, the Society of Dutch-speaking Bars (Orde van Vlaamse Balies) and the French Society of French- and German-speaking Bars – have adopted a common position with the CCBE. The common position specifies that “if the lobbyist is a law firm, he must provide information on his turnover resulting from activities falling within the scope of the register and on the relative weight of each client according to a fixed grid”. However, the lawyer may provide this information on one condition: “A lawyer may provide this information without violating solicitor-client privilege, provided that the lawyer (or law firm) first obtains the client`s express consent” (Van Gerven 2013, 22, emphasis added). This means that even if a law firm registers for the EUTR and contains, for example, basic information, it cannot disclose information about its clients unless the client expressly consents to the provision of such information. Legal lobbying is a complex phenomenon that can be viewed from different angles. Two alternative perspectives are discussed below. In a recent interview with The Practice, Robert Crowe, a partner at Nelson Mullin`s Riley & Scarborough and co-chair of the firm`s government relations practice, suggests that there is a difference between a lawyer and a lobbyist.
When asked about the evolution of his legal career, Crowe notes that although he had been practicing law for more than 42 years, he only considered himself a “real lawyer” for the first 20 years – before turning to government relations. Crowe began his legal career in the traditional way, going to law school and then working on mergers and acquisitions, corporate law and real estate work. However, after engaging in political campaigns, he realized that he had a passion for politics and the political process. As he spent more time in the DC Beltway, he decided he enjoyed advising candidates and elected officials, and discovered that his corporate and tax clients also valued and appreciated his knowledge of political leaders and the legislative process – so much so that they hired him to address their concerns about Internal Revenue Code issues. “My world involves a lot of politics because I`ve always loved politics,” Crowe says. “I have always been politically engaged, believing in the system and raising money to support the political campaigns of the candidates and causes I support. So it was an easy transition for me. I`m in Washington every week when Congress meets. Every time Congress is here, I`m there. Trubek, David, Yves Dezalay, Ruth Buchanan and John R. Davis.
1995. Global Restructuring and Law: Studies on the Internalization of Jurisdictioning and the Creation of Transnational Arenas. Case Western Law Review 44(2): 407–498. Lefebvre, Paul, David Rosenberg, Matthew Zwick and Chloé Vialard. 2012. Solicitor-client privilege: A comparison of different approaches in the United States and the European Union. Defense Counsel Journal 79 (49): 45-62. Second, the difficulties in regulating law firms in the context of lobbying rules reflect not only the power that an influential elite like the legal profession has over the discourse on their affairs, but also how closely internal rule-making and professional policy are linked. So far, the CCBE has been reluctant to amend its code of conduct or adopt a recommendation requiring law firms to comply with EUTR rules.
