Abstract

The paper focuses on the market of legal services in the US. The author depicts some of the institutional features of the legal profession and the specific role that attorneys play in the US legal system. Public law and private law issues are analysed in depth. The article then turns to the recent tendency to consider the legal profession as a commercial activity subject, as any other, to antitrust scrutiny. In this perspective, the Sherman Act has been applied to unauthorized practice of law rules, professional advertisements bans, tariffs, considered as price fixing agreements, rules banning corporations of lawyers. The article finally draws some comparative remarks regarding the recent European debate on the modernization of liberal professions.