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Sep 19, 2012 · This study examined how individuals do “boundary work,” the process of negotiating, setting, moving, and adjusting boundaries between work and life outside of work. In an inductive qualitative study of 70 attorneys in a large US law firm, I found that boundary work cannot be fully understood without considering the relationships within which it happens. Attorneys engaged in different types ...
- Špela Trefalt
- 2013
Jun 23, 2024 · June 23, 2024. Legal Ethics. Professional boundaries in legal practice represent a fundamental aspect of legal ethics, serving as a protective framework for both legal practitioners and their clients. These boundaries ensure that relationships remain professional, minimizing the risk of conflicts and preserving the integrity of legal proceedings.
Jan 11, 2022 · As mentioned above, two initial studies that have initially engaged with the role of trust in interprofessional boundary work are the works of Meier (2015) and Kilpatrick et al. (2012), highlighting how trust is an important aspect of boundary work for collaboration across professions, particularly when boundary work is trying to dissolve traditional boundaries and when contextual conditions ...
- Introduction
- Legal Services, Boundary Uncertainty, and The Limits of Exclusivity
- Exploring Professional Connections in Law—Abs and Wealth Management
- Abs: Claiming Organizational Hybridization in Law
- Wealth Management: Disciplinary Connections in A Disparate Field
- Towards A Connective Account of Legal Professionalism
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
Changes to legal services in England and Wales challenge the way boundaries of law are claimed and maintained at organizational and profession-wide level. Central to this is the Legal Services Act (LSA) 2007, which permits new professions in the marketplace. Changes in how professions organize their boundaries are hugely significant. They matter fo...
This section presents a field-level analysis and, in particular, highlights the boundary uncertainty which is both a product, and a driver, of the field-level disruptions within legal services. It suggests an emerging pattern of connected work across professions within the sector, not readily captured by traditional accounts of boundary work. The U...
ABS and wealth management: structured connections and disruptive claims
ABS and Wealth Management exemplify the professional connections identifiable throughout legal services (Gardner 2017). They also demonstrate drivers for connectivity identified in other sectors, such as healthcare and policy work; namely, the complexity of client problems, the multi-problem nature of professional tasks, and perceptions of risk requiring multi-professional responses (Noordegraaf 2011b: 1358; Gardner 2017: 4). Thus, law, accountancy, and taxation advice are required in wealth...
Data collection methods
The key sources for the ABS are official databases1 and organizations’ websites.2 These data are from 27 ABS.3 Joint venture ABS were selected as they were most likely to contain multi-professional connected expertise. The firms predominately originated from the insurance sector (17/27) and mainly focused on PI-connecting insurance, claims management, and medical and legal expertise, as consistent with the wider ABS sector (LSB 2016b: 18). There were also media (accountancy, fundraising, cons...
Claims of distinction: integrated service
The most common way in which firms assert distinctive expertise is a claim to ‘integrated service’. This is in direct contrast to the exclusive claims of legal exceptionalism, discussed above, which highlight distinctly legal services and foreground the role of the lawyer, for example in a corporate deal (Allen and Overy 2013) or ‘top quality legal advice’ (Slaughter and May accessed 27 November 2019). Critically, it is the service to the client up...
How are the claims supported?
Fundamentally, the claims of service, efficiency, and bespoke, effective services for the consumer in the examples identified are supported by the connected organizational form. Exclusive claims draw on occupational title (Abbott 1988), even at organizational level (Evetts 2013). In contrast, ABS structures provide the framework through which the claims may be delivered, but are also evidence for the substance of the claims. Thus, an integrated, efficient service can be provided through organ...
Claims of distinction: connected expertise
As with ABS, the distinction claimed within Wealth Management does not rest upon assertions of exclusive knowledge, but of connected expertise and integrated service. The claim of specialized expertise within the originating profession is crucial. This specialist expertise is, however, connected in terms of the other knowledge with which it engages and the other professions with which practitioners work (Harrington 2012). Within organizations, it is the connection of traditional expertise tha...
How are claims supported?
Claims are supported in two broad ways—organizational structures and the STEP qualification. Within wealth management, there are a number of alliances between firms with a tax and financial planning focus with those of law firms—for example, Pinsent Masons Pension Services and Womble Bond Dickinson Wealth. These connections are stronger than referral—in many cases, presented as the same organization; effectively providing organizational support for (and evidence of) connection. This is indica...
The following section synthesizes the findings from the exemplar sites, with the field review above, and draws on existing literature (in particular, Abbott 2005; Noordegraaf 2011a) to propose a preliminary framework to consider the claims of, and the drivers for, connective legal professionalism. The key elements prominent in the claims are the im...
This article argues that shifting the analysis of boundary work to emphasize connections foregrounds an important and overlooked aspect of professional and organizational change. Crucially, connection across previously rigid jurisdictions is not simply a negative description of lost professional control (Abel 2003) or the emergence of a new profess...
Many thanks to Lu Xu for research assistance. I am particularly grateful to Sundeep Aulakh, Joan Loughrey, Richard Moorhead, and Michael Thomson and to the editors and three reviewers for their helpful and insightful comments on earlier drafts.
A boundary is an accepted social, physical or psychological space between people. Boundaries create an appropriate “therapeutic distance” between physician and patient, and help establish roles and expectations. 2 In simplest terms, boundaries recognize the inherent power differential between the doctor and the patient, and define the limits of the therapeutic relationship.
In simple terms, a "boundary" refers to an imaginary line that marks the limits of a piece of land or property. It helps define where one person's property ends and another's begins. This concept is important in law because it helps prevent disputes between neighbors. For example, if two people own adjacent plots of land, knowing where the ...
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Nov 25, 2015 · Professional boundaries can be described as limits that protect the space between the professional’s power and the client’s vulnerability (Peterson, 1992). The crossing of boundaries occurs when the relationship between these two parties becomes ambiguous; the transition may be brief or sustained, and is usually context-dependent ( Sheets, 2001 ).
