This comment is approached with some trepidation. My eclectic background does not allow me the peace of mind I might have if I had arrived at this point in my life with a more connected or cohesive history. I therefore approach this review from at least three perspectives: (i) as a sociologist with training in traditional social science research methods and methodology, (ii) as a lawyer with some experience prosecuting in provincial court, and (iii) as an academic who has recently dabbled in feminist legal methods and methodology, in law and the social sciences. The first two perspectives require assumptions about social science research and law; the third perspective challenges, questions, and debunks many of these assumptions. Whether there can be an integration of the third with the first or the second is the subject of much debate among feminist academics in, and between, the social sciences and law. At times it is unclear which perspective is influencing my comments, and so I slide from one to another and back again.

This paper analyzes the processing of complaints against lawyers through the Law Society of British Columbia's disciplinary system between 1989 and 2000. It also examines changes to the context within which the disciplinary system operates, between the time period of an earlier study (1978–1988) and this study. Cases processed by the disciplinary system are discussed in light of a model that examines the process from the perspective of how cases are brought into the system (funnel in), and reduced in number by the disciplinary system (funnel out). Finally, the future of self-regulation is assessed in light of some of the renegotiations and readjustments to professional self-regulation that have taken place elsewhere.

This paper examines the growth in numbers of lawyers in Canada and British Columbia, and the attrition rates of members from the Law Society of British Columbia. It then reports on the results of a survey of former members of the Law Society of British Columbia which examines the reasons why these former members did not renew their memberships in the Law Society, their perceptions of gender bias in the legal profession in British Columbia, their suggestions for improving the legal profession, and some of the implications of such recommendations.

Self-regulation in the legal profession has recently, as it has on previous occasions, come under a barrage of criticism. This paper examines a narrow aspect of self-regulation, the processing of complaints through to dispositions within the disciplinary system of the Law Society of British Columbia between 1978-1988. Statistics and case reports of the Law Society are used to examine the disciplining of lawyers in light of a model which encompasses the benefits of self-regulation (funnel in) and criticism of it (funnel out and funnel away). While suggestions are made for improving the present system there is some question as to whether self-regulation will survive the rapidly changing nature of the legal profession as it bends to national and international pressures.