XIII. Conclusion

During the nineteenth century the governance of the legal professions became increas­ingly centralised. The Law Society built a broad-based membership and managed to centralise power around its London base.

The Legal Services Act 2007 reduced the regulatory power of professional bodies, largely confining professional bodies to representative tasks. Both the Bar Council and the Law Society have extremely diverse memberships. Within each there are powerful sectional interests, rendering representation a difficult task. As Burrage predicted, increasing diversity in the professions, and extreme differences in the status and circumstances of members, may well exacerbate problems of governance.¹⁶²

Now that they are confined to a representative role, professional bodies face a stark choice. They may seek a traditional role, as authoritative voice for the occupation, or act more like a trade union, trying to improve the circumstances of less favoured sections of the membership. It is difficult for one body to perform both roles. Choosing either at the expense of the other is likely to leave a large part of the membership disaffected.

¹⁶² ibid, at 73.