Professional ethics codes partly serve elite bar interests as anticompetitive rules.

Evidence

Many of the canons were rules of plain common sense or ordinary morality. It was definitely a violation of ethics to steal money from a client. But other rules reflected the norms and ambitions of the elite members of the bar. No lawyer, for example, was allowed to use “circulars or advertisements” (Canon 27). Wall Street lawyers never advertised; big firms had no need to. They had old, stable clients on retainer, and they got new business through informal networks. On the other hand, storefront lawyers, who represented people run over by streetcars or who wanted a divorce, needed a constant stream of new business; they had “one-​shot” clients, and no rich clients on retainers. Other canons of “ethics” were simply anticompetitive. The rules basically outlawed price-​cutting. Bar associations set minimum fees, and they fought against “unauthorized practice,” that is, they defended their turf against other professionals. They wanted a monopoly over all activities that could reasonably be defined as the practice of law. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4043

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the occupational-licensing, group self-interest channel opened in ch50 (David Friedman lineage). — connects to: Professional ethics rules banning advertising protected elite lawyers over clients — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1281; Bar associations began as exclusive elite clubs, not mass professional bodies — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1278; A standard of identity can serve as a private anticompetitive weapon — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1517 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• A standard of identity can serve as a private anticompetitive weapon #corroborates (0.82) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1517