Afterword: Leading works in the legal profession

As Daniel Newman notes, academic interest in the legal profession has grown significantly in the past few decades. This is in no small part due to the work of several pioneering scholars – many of whom are celebrated and discussed at length within this collection – who have each forged new inroads into legal scholarship and legal practice. Turning first to the matter of who comprises the legal profession, it is important to acknowledge that members of this profession have always been categorised by the types of work that they do. The most obvious example is the professional divide between solicitors and barristers: a distinction that is particularly clear in England and Wales as compared with other jurisdictions that subscribe to a ‘fused’ or ‘hybrid’ model of the legal profession. Legal professionals are also frequently categorised by the area of law in which they specialise, with family lawyers clearly demarcated from those undertaking work in commercial transactions.