Abstract/Summary

This thesis seeks to examine the relative effect of the licensing requirements related to professionalism for the practice of law and the six behaviour influences that have been identified by the literature as being used in the context of that regulation to positively direct lawyers’ professionalism behaviour. There are four direct licensing requirements and two aspects of delivery identified by the literature. Professionalism for law practice as the dependent variable has been defined for the research question as the acceptance or rejection of a client retainer in circumstances considering conflict of interest. A questionnaire and score for professionalism was created using ten questions and scoring responses as correct if the decision was consistent with court cases used to develop the questions. An empirical study using the survey method was selected for the research. The survey was distributed across the US and Canada to lawyers and law students in available legal professional associations and law firms. The survey research and resulting data was designed and used to test hypothesis developed from the literature using two models illustrating how the six influences relate to each other and to the dependent variable of professionalism. This study was developed to specifically address the literature-identified gap of a lack of empirical research into the effect of the six influences on professionalism behaviour. My results show that the six influences are collinear and as such, independent effects of each on the dependent variable cannot be established consistently in a single model. Rather, I show that each of the six behaviour influences impact the dependent variable of professionalism in separate estimations. There are contributions from the research to research methodology, scale development and suggestions of more efficient management techniques. The data and analysis also provided a basis for concluding that lawyers tend to favour professional appearance over economic advantage. A lack of effect from personality and demographics was also a significant finding.