II. KNOWLEDGE AND JURISDICTION

The most ambitious revision of sociological theories of the professions since we completed our comparative project is Andrew Abbott's emphasis on the relationship between knowledge and jurisdiction.^[50] Abbott makes two claims: interprofessional competition for market shares is the central feature of the system of professions; and competition is conducted through the medium of knowledge claims. This reorientation has several virtues. It directs attention away from the social structural characteristics (associations, credentialing, self-regulation) professions share with other occupations and toward the distinctiveness of what professionals do.^[51] Abbott thereby problematized the structural-functional claim that professionals deploy expertise, just as social closure theory problematized the structural-functional claim that self-regulation was necessary and sufficient to ensure quality and altruism.

At the end of our three volumes (chapter 8 in this volume) we commended such a redirection, and we welcome the studies that have begun to emerge. Many concern the ways in which lawyers transform client experience and motivation into legal claims and remedies—mostly in family disputes,^[52] but also in commercial matters^[53] and civil litigation generally.^[54] Others look at the role of lawyers in negotiation.^[55]

Competing claims to knowledge often illuminate fluctuations in the market for legal services: for instance, the rivalry between English solicitors and accountants since the mid-nineteenth century,^[56] the success of employed German jurists in retaining their role in banking while being reduced to paralegals in the insurance industry,^[57] the efforts of Rechtsanwäilte to retain corporate work,^[58] and the campaign by Parisian judges to expand their role in economic disputes.^[59]

I do have reservations about Abbott's theorization, however. First, his emphasis on knowledge is far from original. More than twenty years earlier two French sociologists stressed the importance of knowledge in analyzing university hospitals, as did two American lawyers in mapping competition between lawyers and others in the United States and England.^[60] Second, Abbott explains a fairly narrow segment of professional life. Most professionals are not engaged in competition with outsiders most of the time. As Abbott clearly states, professional jurisdictions tend to be entrenched for lengthy periods, both in law and, to a lesser extent, in public opinion.

Third, it is very difficult to ascertain what professionals know and how they are using that knowledge. This indeterminacy imbues the theory with a strongly postmodern quality, allowing it to explain everything (and therefore, perhaps, nothing). The elusiveness of any independent measure of knowledge tempts the analyst into circularity and tautology—the attribution of knowledge to professions that have secured their jurisdictions. Mark Osiel, for instance, asserts that common lawyers enjoy a broader jurisdiction than their civilian counterparts because the former must exercise practical judgment in the absence of code and theory.^[61] I find this both empirically dubious and virtually untestable.

The theory of social closure insists that professions justify their anti-competitive practices by demonstrating a connection to quality. Because knowledge claims are so hard to test, theorizations based on them can lose their critical edge (another trait often associated with postmodernism), lapsing into structural-functional complacency. Shapiro, for instance, asserts that professions are defined "by the quantities and qualities of knowledge they acquire and practice." "Lawyers... are specialists in a particular language who gain that special knowledge by training. What they do is speak that language as a means of representing individuals."^[62] Sterett maintains "it is clear that whether or not practitioners study or use 'the law,' society does expect and take account of some presumed expertise."^[63] Halliday ascribes the authority of professional organizations to "knowledge mandates."^[64] But lawyers may actually speak jabberwocky and claim knowledge that is either factitious or irrelevant. Abbott cannot be blamed for this misreading. He consistently characterizes professional knowledge as a social construct, offering a nuanced analysis of how knowledge claims are advanced and challenged, succeed and fail. Others have described the role of professional ideology in shaping and defending jurisdictions and the differences between knowledge claimed and deployed by both teachers and practitioners.^[65]

Perhaps the best antidote to mistaking professional pretensions for proficiency is to look at the knowledge actually deployed. Many professions have supplemented entry barriers with mandatory continuing education. Once again, medicine is in the forefront. But consider this advertisement.^[66]

The 4th I.A.C.D. Conference on CONSCIOUS IMMORTALITY
Continuing Education credits for medical professionals
CME approved 7.5 hours for physicians, Category I;
CEU approved 7.5 hours for Registered Nurses;
Certificates issued to all conference attendees.
Lectures understandable to the General Public.

RAYMOND A. MOODY, JR., M.D., Ph.D., Author of Life After Life, Reflections on Life After Life, The Light Beyond and Reunions. (The Latter is about Encounters with the Departed Loved Ones, which he will talk about at the seminar.)

KENNETH RING, Ph.D. Author of Life at Death, Heading Toward Omega.

BRUCE GOLDBERG, D.D.S., M.S. Author of Past Lives-Future Lives.

DONINGA L. REYES, Ph.D. Author of Two Souls (an Out-of-the-Body Experience).

CLAUDIA JENSEN, M.D. Counselor on Consciousness Awareness.

SUSAN STORCH, RN, BSN, M.A. Lecturer on Conscious Dying, a thanatologist practicing hospice nursing, working in L.A. HIV/AIDS community.

The rapid expansion of the global economy is creating new markets for professional services, which offer an excellent opportunity to test theories about knowledge and jurisdiction.^[67] I want to enter a preliminary caveat, however. Clients include multinational corporations, foreign governments, and parastatals. Transnational practice possesses the exotic allure earlier enjoyed by exploration, colonialism, diplomacy, the Grand Tour, and jet-setting. Material and social rewards are high. Yet for all but the smallest legal professions, transnational practice will remain an esoteric specialization, preoccupying only a small minority of members (while perhaps accentuating professional stratification).

Globalization shifts economic activity from within states to their interstices or across their borders, where rules are either absent or new and unclear. National cultures clash, upsetting and obstructing informal understandings among entrepreneurs. Conflicts can be taken to a variety of forums, each using different techniques and requiring appropriate expertise. With established jurisdictions dislocated, competition thrives among nations and disciplines. The knowledge on which new jurisdictional claims can be based is transitory and fluid. Consumers (corporations, financial institutions, and states) are expert. The stakes are high: the formation and termination of large enterprises (mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy and reorganization), deal-making, and relations with and among national and transnational states (licensing, regulation, antitrust, and government contracts).

The principal competitors in this domain are lawyers, accountants, management consultants, and, to a lesser extent, investment bankers. The struggle is most intense in Europe and the Far East. Accountants have significant advantages: numeracy, computer literacy, the size and inter-

national character of the Big Six, existing ties with multinational corporations (for which they conduct audits), expertise in tax, and a strongly entrepreneurial attitude.^[68] But lawyers make the rules. American lawyers (and to a lesser extent English solicitors) have the advantages of firm size, a focus on corporate work, and aggressiveness; many, however, lack knowledge of civil law systems and European languages. European lawyers have sought to update their knowledge by forging links with innovative legal academics and acquiring further education in the United States. Competition has forced national legal professions to close ranks against outsiders: French avocats and conseils juridiques finally united some twenty years after a failed attempt in 1971; German Rechtsanwälte defied the ban on multistate partnerships; the distinction between English solicitors and barristers is eroding. European firms, increasingly multinational (and even multidisciplinary), are emulating the size and structure of American firms.

But knowledge is not the only terrain of contestation and is often little more than a rationalization. National legal professions have resorted to a wide variety of protectionist strategies: limiting practice to citizens; demanding a lengthy, unpaid apprenticeship; setting an examination in the local language or law; excluding outsiders from certain functions (litigation, land transfers, probate, and family matters); demanding extortionate payments to local compensation and indemnity funds; insisting on reciprocity from the lawyer's home jurisdiction (and every subjurisdiction in federal polities); limiting advocacy by employed lawyers; and prohibiting multinational and multidisciplinary partnerships. Status concerns may be as important as market share: All lawyers fear dominance by accountants, and all other lawyers fear dominance by Americans.