The Disruption
of a Profession
A Sociological Approach
of Belgian Lawyers
Dubois C., Kotisova J., Mansvelt V.
Cyberspace 2017 – 15
thInternational Conference
Masaryk University, Brno
24-25/11/2017
o Belgian Orders (Avocats.be and O.V.B.)
o Self regulation (Bar Association, Law
Societies) (Freidson, 1988; Ogus, 1995)
o Ethics
o Quality (price opacity) (Karpik, 2010)
o Gatekeeping (monopoly) (Larson,
1977)
1. From a “classical” liberal
profession…
o Marketing discourses (premises and fears)
(Susskind, 2010; Susskind & Susskind, 2015;
Wickers, 2014)
o Entrepreneurs & legaltech startups
• Automatisation/ standardisation (price
transparency) (Regan & Heenan, 2009)
• Inter-professional dynamics (Halpern, 1992;
Noordegraaf, 2011)
• … in a liberalisation context (VAT) (Lee,
2010)
• Where survival and capital gain are at stake
2. … towards the legal
marketplace
a) “ conservative”
o Sceptical / cynical / denial (Lefsrud & Meyer, 2010;
Kotisova, 2017)
o Go (sceptical) or don’t go (denial) to commercial events
o Defence of the classical professional model (critiques
against the neoliberal political mainstream – defence of
“the poor and the orphan”) (Lash, 2007)
o Pessimism / reluctance towards change
o questioning Avocats.be’ s role (entrepreneur /
membership fees)
3. Two different professional
profiles
b) “ modernist ”
o Geeks: website and hacking informed and interested
o Practical management tools / professional tools /
machine learning / AI (mainstream or alternative)
o Automatic scanning of their paper files (paperless)
o Optimism and trust in the changing / challenging context
o Pessimism towards the professional body’ s inertia
(survival of the profession)
o work rationalisation (costs reduction / increasing
profits)
o demystification of the marketing discourse (AI’s
premises)
3. Two different professional
profiles
o “IT entrepreneur” / IT support
• Developing new tools / hub incubator/ platforms
• informing/ awareness raising
o Intermediary position: between the market and the politics
• Financing and implementing public policy
• Brokers and partners of private companies (who want to
capture new market shares)
o In quest for a new kind of legitimacy / a new identity
• Increasingly heterogeneous members (early and late
modernisation waves)
• Less and less middle-class litigants (increasing SMEs)
• The role of advertising / soliciting
• Defining new (inter/cross) professional boundaries
(Abbott, 2005)
• Redefining ethical rules and ethical regulation?
4. New clothes for the
o Abbott, A. (2005). Linked ecologies: States and universities as environments for professions. Sociological theory, 23(3), 245-274.
o Freidson, E. (1988). Professional powers: A study of the institutionalization of formal knowledge. University of Chicago Press.
o Karpik, L. (2010). Valuing the unique: The economics of singularities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
o Halpern, S. A. (1992). Dynamics of professional control: Internal coalitions and crossprofessional boundaries. American journal of sociology, 97(4), 994-1021.
o Kotišová, J. (2017). Cynicism ex machina: the emotionality of reporting the ‘refugee crisis’ and Paris terrorist attacks in Czech television. European Journal of Communication, 32, 3, 242-256. o Larson, M. S. (1977). The rise of professionalism: A sociological analysis. Univ of California Press. o Lash, S. (2007). Power after hegemony: Cultural studies in mutation?. Theory, culture & society,
24(3), 55-78.
o Lee, R. G. (2010). Liberalisation of legal services in Europe: progress and prospects. Legal Studies, 30(2), 186-207.
o Lefsrud, L. M., & Meyer, R. E. (2012). Science or science fiction? Professionals’ discursive construction of climate change. Organization Studies, 33(11), 1477-1506.
o Noordegraaf, M. (2011). Risky business: How professionals and professional fields (must) deal with organizational issues. Organization Studies, 32(10), 1349-1371.
o Ogus, A. (1995). Rethinking self-regulation. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 15(1), 97-108.
o Regan Jr, M. C., & Heenan, P. T. (2009). Supply chains and porous boundaries: the disaggregation of legal services. Fordham L. Rev., 78, 2137.
o Susskind, R. E. (2010). The end of lawyers?: rethinking the nature of legal services. Oxford University Press.
o Susskind, R., & Susskind, D. (2015). The future of the professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts. Oxford University Press, USA.
o Wickers, T. (2014). La grande transformation des avocats. Paris, Dalloz.
