This detailed portrait of American lawyers traces their efforts to professionalize during the last 100 years by erecting barriers to control the quality and quantity of entrants. Abel describes the rise and fall of restrictive practices that dampened competition among lawyers and with outsiders. He shows how lawyers simultaneously sought to increase access to justice while stimulating demand for services, and their efforts to regulate themselves while forestalling external control. Data on income and status illuminate the success of these efforts. Charting the dramatic transformation of the profession over the last two decades, Abel documents the growing number and importance of lawyers employed outside private practice (in business and government, as judges and teachers) and the displacement of corporate clients they serve. Noting the complexity of matching ever more diverse entrants with more stratified roles, he depicts the mechanism that law schools and employers have created to allocate graduates to jobs and socialize them within their new environments. Abel concludes with critical reflections on possible and desirable futures for the legal profession.

理查德·埃貝爾（Richard L. Abel）是加州大學洛杉磯分校（UCLA）的法學教授。他齣生於1941年，1962年獲哈佛大學文學士學位（B.A.）。1965年他獲哥倫比亞大學法學士學位（LL.B.）後，曾在密西西比州民權保護律師委員會工作，1969年開始在耶魯大學法學院任教，1971-1972年他任職於紐黑文法律援助協會。1974年他在倫敦大學亞洲和非洲研究學院獲得哲學博士學位（Ph.D.），此後一直任職於加州大學洛杉磯分校法學院主要著作有《非形式正義的政治》（論文集）（The Politics of Informal Justice，1982）；《英格蘭和威爾士的法律職業》（The Legal Profession in England and Wales，1988）；《社會中的律師》（31捲）（Lawyers in Society，1989-1989）；《政治的特殊方式：反種族隔離抗爭中的法律1980-1994》（Politics by Other Means: Law in the Struggle against Apartheid，1980-1994，1995）；《律師：一種批判解讀》（Lawyers；A Critical Reader，1997）；《言論尊重與尊重言論》（Speaking Respect，Respecting Speech，1998）；《市場與國傢之間的英國律師：職業主義的政治》（English Lawyers between Market and State：The Politics of Professionalism，2003）