David Freeman Engstrom (Stanford) and Daniel B. Rodriguez (Northwestern) argue that current structure of American legal services regulation, known as “Our Bar Federalism,” is outdated. Fifty states maintain their own rules and regulatory apparatus for a legal profession and industry that are now national and multinational. This fragmented system is a key factor in the American civil justice system’s access-to-justice crisis, where restrictive state rules support the lawyers’ monopoly. With new legal services delivery models and AI, this scheme will seem increasingly provincial and retrograde. This chapter argues it’s time to rethink "Our Bar Federalism," and explore hybrid state-federal regulatory system.

Rebecca Aviel (Denver University (Sturm) Law) draws on her deep expertise in family law to illuminate ways in which domestic relations cases are exceptional relative to other legal areas where access concerns are acute. Family law’s exceptionalism, she contends, justifies thoroughgoing changes to that system’s adversarial architecture, such as permitting a single lawyer to represent both sides in a divorce, that are well-tailored to family law even if nonstarters in other parts of the civil justice system. Aviel also suggests that some innovative family law programs might travel well, informing reforms in other civil justice contexts even where they cannot be directly replicated.