Slow reply so you may never see this. But you raise a very good point. As do the other people who replied.
* If a company misbehaves then people can boycott it and/or protest against it. It can be punished in a way that affects it's competitiveness. Public pressure can't be applied in the same way to an organisation without competition.
* If we had multiple bar associations then hypothetically certain bars would preferentially attract good lawyers and others would attract bad. Good lawyers would transfer from a bad bar to a good bar (Please excuse simplistic use of good/bad). So there would indeed need to be an overreaching feedback mechanism that would punish a 'bad' bar association full of bad but cheap lawyers.
I suppose a simplistic solution could be:
* Enforcing multiple bar associations that are not allowed more than (say) 15% of the total number of lawyers
* A mechanism for banning any of these associations if they don't keep there members in check.
A thought just jumped into my head that the Bar Association and the AMA are essentially organisations that are, 'Too Big to Fail'. If you (The public through your elected reps) can't punish something then you can't control it or force it to enforce standards.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think your reasons make a lot of sense. Potentially, some associations get known as "the good ones" and then they're more competitive than the others.
Ultimately though, it comes down to the laws/regulations. If they leave room for an association that doesn't care about its reputation, the lawyers who would be kicked out of the reputable associations will simply transfer to it and nothing is solved.
* If a company misbehaves then people can boycott it and/or protest against it. It can be punished in a way that affects it's competitiveness. Public pressure can't be applied in the same way to an organisation without competition.
* If we had multiple bar associations then hypothetically certain bars would preferentially attract good lawyers and others would attract bad. Good lawyers would transfer from a bad bar to a good bar (Please excuse simplistic use of good/bad). So there would indeed need to be an overreaching feedback mechanism that would punish a 'bad' bar association full of bad but cheap lawyers.
I suppose a simplistic solution could be:
* Enforcing multiple bar associations that are not allowed more than (say) 15% of the total number of lawyers
* A mechanism for banning any of these associations if they don't keep there members in check.
A thought just jumped into my head that the Bar Association and the AMA are essentially organisations that are, 'Too Big to Fail'. If you (The public through your elected reps) can't punish something then you can't control it or force it to enforce standards.