For Immediate Release
April 30, 2007

Contact:

Kara Tershel, (202) 662-9500

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Georgetown University Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff is pleased to announce the establishment of the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession, which will be directed by Georgetown Law Professors Milton Regan and Jeffrey Bauman.   

"The aim of the Center is to promote informed scholarship on the legal profession and provide students with a more sophisticated awareness of the complex challenges of a modern legal career," Aleinikoff said.  "It will also serve as a resource for broad perspectives on trends and developments in the legal profession."

As one of its first projects, the Center has published "Law Firms, Ethics, and Equity Capital: A Conversation."  The paper, which looks at whether ethics rules should be changed to permit law firms to raise money from outside equity investors, will also be published in a forthcoming issue of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics.

The paper is timed to stimulate discussion of the potential effects of pending legislation in the United Kingdom that would permit law firms to become publicly traded enterprises. The legislation is expected to go into effect next year.

 "This change could have profound effects on global law practice, and raise fundamental questions about the basic identity of the legal profession," Regan said. "Surprisingly, there has been little public discussion on this side of the Atlantic of the potentially significant impact of this development. We’re trying to get that discussion started."

The Center also sponsors a quarterly ethics roundtable for senior management at major law firms, and will be organizing conferences and other events that focus on the legal profession.

About Georgetown University Law Center 

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It has the largest full-time faculty in the nation and is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body.

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