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7 Gonz. J. Int'l L. 1 (2003-2004)
The Transnational Practice of Law: Staggering Growth in Spite of Economic and Regulation Barriers to Entry

handle is hein.journals/gjil7 and id is 153 raw text is: THE TRANSNATIONAL PRACTICE OF LAW: STAGGERING GROWTH IN SPITE OF ECONOMIC AND REGULATORY BARRIERS TO ENTRY Stephen M. Worth I. INTRODUCTION For at least the past twenty years, transnational law firms have been growing in number and importance to the legal community and world economy. Generally, a transnational law firm can be defined as a law firm with offices in multiple countries, specializing in providing counsel on foreign law and cross-border litigation and business. The recent growth of such firms has been phenomenal. In fact, most of the growth has occurred in the last two decades, and most of that since the 1980's.1 With this growth, however, have come a great number of interesting challenges and questions for practitioners of law in the twenty-first century. Transnational practice presents a number of issues which are treated differently from one country to the other: Professional conduct and responsibility, the scope of attorney-client privilege and professional secrets,... disciplinary procedures, [and the] independence of professional judgment.,2 For this reason, the future of the transnational law firm, and, perhaps more importantly, the lawyer specializing in international law, is anything but certain. Nevertheless, because of the growing importance of free trade to the world economy, it seems likely that such legal practices will continue to be demanded by companies operating internationally. II. TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTICE IN GENERAL 1 Richard L. Abel, Transnational Law Practice, 44 CASE W. RES. L. REv. 737, 738 (1994). 2 Jaime Cortes Rocha, Transnational Practice of the Legal Profession in the Context of the North American Free Trade Agreement, 15 INT'L L. PRACTICUM 111, 111 (2002).