Unauthorized practice of law and the production of lawyers

Discussions regarding the 'flooding' of the legal profession have often focused on issues of jurisprudence and legal culture (how people resolve disputes), accessibility to legal education (growth in the number of law schools), social and cultural factors (the status of the profession) and structural barriers to professional entry (how difficult it is to become a lawyer). In this paper I discuss the increasing number of lawyers in Israel (now the highest per capita in developed countries) in reference to an additional factor: the most extensive rules regarding unauthorized practice of law, strictly guarded and enforced by the Israeli Bar Association. In Israeli society law has increasingly become an accepted forum for resolving private and public disputes. At the same time, any kind of activity entailing provision of legal advice, legal documentation or representation is restricted to lawyers only - thus entry into the profession becomes the only way to take part and become engaged in the field of legal services.