This Element engages with fundamental questions concerning the future trajectory of professions as a distinct occupational category and of the formal organizations, which represent, employ or host professionals. It begins with a literature review that identifies a functionalist, power and institutionalist lens for the study of professional occupations and organizations. It then reviews a series of challenges which face the contemporary professions. Finally, the Element explores contemporary developments in the worlds of professions applying three units of analysis: macro (professional occupations and their associations), meso (professional organizations) and micro (professional workers).

Intersectionality theory is concerned with integrating social characteristics to better understanding complex human relations and inequalities in organizations and societies (McCall ). Recently, intersectionality research has taken a categorical and quantitative turn as scholars critically adopt but retain existing social categories to explain differences in labour market outcomes. A key contention is that social categories carry penalties or privileges and their intersection promotes or hinders the life chances of particular groups and individuals. An emergent debate is whether the intersection of disadvantaged characteristics (such as female gender or minority ethnic status) produce penalties that are additive, multiplicative or ameliorative. Research is inconclusive and as yet pays little attention to moderating factors such as employer type, size, geographic location or work profile. Drawing on administrative records for individuals qualified as solicitors in England and Wales, collected by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), combined with aggregated workforce data and firm characteristics of their law firms, we undertake a statistical analysis of the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the profession with a degree of precision and nuance not previously possible. In response to calls to broaden studies of inequalities and intersectionality beyond their effect on pay or income (Castilla ) we focus on career progression to partnership as our key measure of success. The original contribution of our study is twofold. First, we establish statistically different profiles of law firms, showing how the solicitors' profession is stratified by gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background, as well as the type of legal work undertaken by developing a model of socio-economic stratification in the profession. Second, we demonstrate that while penalties tend to be additive (i.e. the sum of the individual ethnic and gender penalties) this varies significantly by law firm profile and in some situations the effect is ameliorative.

The UK Legal Services Act 2007 permits external financing and unlimited non-lawyer ownership of legal practices through the formation of Alternative Business Structures (ABSs). For many, the impact of this changed regulation on the 'professional partnership', as the dominant organizational form through which legal services are delivered, will be considerable. However, to date few studies have explored this empirically. This paper addresses this gap by examining organisational changes within ABSs to assess how far these firms have departed from the professional partnership model. Focusing upon the ABS population licensed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority between January 2012 and August 2015, the study findings show a continuum of organizational responses against four specified indicators: incorporation, multi-disciplinary practices, non-lawyer ownership, and external investment. These range from those that depart little from traditional practices to those that are more radical. We conclude that, whilst regulatory reform has yet to dislodge the dominance of the professional partnership, it has disturbed the status quo and increased the variety of 'economic units' within which legal services are delivered.

Introduction Our aim in this paper is to explore key influences on the effectiveness of regional scrutiny arrangements. The creation of a scrutiny role for the English Regional assemblies in relation to their respective Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) comes after the establishment of overview and scrutiny committees within local government and the introduction of health scrutiny. The Labour government contends that scrutiny assists in plugging the`accountability gap'. However, prior research on scrutiny demonstrates that it has several key limitations as an instrument of accountability. For example, a review of the literature on parliamentary select committees suggests that they have struggled to scrutinise the work of the executive effectively (Ashworth et al, 2001a; Garrett, 1992; Polidano, 2001). In this paper, we identify five variables which currently influence the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny and argue that these variables have important implications for the success of regional scrutiny. RDAs were created in order to address an economic deficit. However, the government recognised that creating these regional quangos would further exacerbate the democratic deficit (Morgan, 2002). Consequently, it was proposed that the scrutiny of RDA plans, strategies, and performance would be a key function performed by regional assemblies, which were established``to add a (thin) veneer of regional accountability'' (Jeffery and Mawson, 2002, page 715). The regional scrutiny role originates from the 1988 Regional Development Agencies Act, which states that each RDA must``have regard, in the exercise of its functions, to any views expressed by the chamber, and to consult the chamber in relation to the exercise of such of its functions'' (section 8). However, RDA functions and budgets have continued to expand. Determining that further expansion should be accompanied by enhanced scrutiny, the government outlined a more substantial scrutiny remit in March 2001 in the consultation paper

A dominant theme within institutional theory is that organizational responses to regulatory demands will be characterised by decoupling. However, this assumption rests on regulation as a coercive force. The emergence of 'new governance regulation' and the freedom afforded to firms to tailor regulatory demands to local circumstances should, theoretically, foster greater commitment to, achievement of, regulatory goals. Focusing on the responses of solicitor practices in England and Wales to outcome-focused regulation, this paper explores the extent to which the flexibility of NGR triggers substantive compliance. Drawing on multiple data sources, we find that law firms made significant investments in compliance infrastructures and developed strategies to integrate compliance into work structures and day to day activities.Whilst their responses indicate substantive compliance, core regulatory goals were only partially met..