Des raisons de l’efficacité supérieure d’un ordre institutionnel sur l’ordre marchand

Through several reports, the European Commission stressed the view that the constitutive rules of liberal professions might be illegimate protections against competition : therefore, as an example, alleviating the traditional rules organizing the profession of lawyers within a professional order would create a « market for legal services » and induce lower prices for consumers. That view does not resist serious scrutiny, starting from the evidence that – even if we follow standard economic theory – the effect of competition upon prices should never be considered independently from the effect upon quality ; And the handling of law by lawyers, encounters deep coordination problems, at the level of quality, which the dynamics of a market is not expected to be able to solve but which can find appropriate answers through the dynamics of a professional order