On 28 May 2025, the Asian Law and Economics Association (AsLEA), in collaboration with the City University of Hong Kong School of Law, had the honour of hosting Professor Kyle Rozema (Northwestern University, Pritzker School of Law), for an online talk titled “How Should the Legal Profession be Regulated?” The event featured a discussion session with Professor Xiaohong Yu (Tsinghua University, Department of Political Science) and an engaging Q&A session, moderated by Professor Lauren Yu-Hsin Lin (City University of Hong Kong, School of Law).
In this talk, Professor Rozema discussed various ways in which legal professions are regulated and the impact of different regulatory approaches on the legal profession. He empirically examined the effect of the bar exam on the size and quality of the legal profession, measured by the disciplinary sanctions imposed on lawyers. Professor Rozema concluded the talk by identifying key open empirical questions for future research on the legal profession. In the discussion session, Professor Yu provided valuable commentary, highlighting the need to consider social capital and local context in legal regulation. She raised critical questions about how to accurately measure lawyer quality beyond disciplinary sanctions, such as entry barriers and jurisdictional practice restrictions. The talk attracted over a hundred registrants, including scholars, lawyers, practitioners, and law students.
The Lecture Series in Law and Economics is a collaborative initiative between the City University of Hong Kong School of Law and the Asian Law and Economics Association. Featuring renowned scholars from around the world, the series explores the application of economic analysis to legal and policy issues, fostering dialogue and collaboration among legal and economics scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.
About the speaker:
Kyle Rozema is a Professor of Law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. His research focuses on how we should structure and regulate the legal profession, legal institutions, and law schools. He studies questions about the bar exam, lawyer discipline, judicial reform, and clerkship access, using novel data and empirical methods. Much of his work aims to estimate the causal effects of legal rules and institutional design, while also offering descriptive insights into how the legal system operates. He is also the co-author, with Adam Chilton, of Trial by Numbers: A Lawyer’s Guide to Statistical Evidence, a non-technical introduction to statistical evidence for law students and lawyers.
