Imagine waking up to discover that Sir David Clementi, originator of the 2007 legal services reforms, is prime minister. That must be the feeling among some French lawyers for whom, until his dramatic emergence last year, president elect Emmanuel Macron was best known as a deregulating bogeyman.
The 'Loi Macron' of 6 August 2015, drafted while Macron was economy minister, allowed the regulated professions to open new forms of businesses, including such daring innovations as shop-front premises. While French-style Tesco Law (La Loi Carrefour?) has yet to make a big impression, at least one new-style business is taking advantage of the reforms. A network of firms called AGN Avocats is attempting to simplify access to law for the 59% of French people who it says have never had dealings with a lawyer. Apart from 13 high street branches around the country, the business offers online services such as divorce (in cases of mutual consent) and commencing the process of evicting tenants who aren't paying their rent.
Obiter wonders if the experience of seeing through measures to reform the notoriously conservative legal profession emboldened Macron to go for the big job. But whatever his plans for the nation as a whole, he can expect robust scrutiny from the country's avocats on such matters as civil liberties, access to legal aid and the creaking state of the courts system. And not a few calls for the repeal of his eponymous law.
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