Samenvatting

There is a growing consensus among practitioners that independent peer review is the preferred approach to furthering trust in the legal professions. The article draws on experience abroad, as reported in the professional literature, and lessons from comparable arrangements at home, in academia and the medical professions. It formulates an institutional design in which an autonomous agency, independent of the Lawyers' Association and at arms' length from the Minister of Justice, develops methodology and organizes peer reviews by fellow-practitioners. Since professionals, everywhere, like to share experience, it is argued that making site-visits, sampling case-files, and discussing a self-evaluation of the practice under review promotes open innovation and creates scope for shaping rather than controlling professional excellence. It also allows for discretion in catering to the widely diverging needs of large international law firms and small local practices that a system of command and control could not deliver.