The Regulation of Cyberspace: Control in the Online Environment by Andrew D. Murray
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2007.00668_3.x |
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
Burrage concludes that there is a strong and lasting connection between the
idealism of the three revolutions and the subsequent philosophy ofthe three legal
professions. In asking the question of why lawyers behave as they do, he points to
the failure of the English legal profession to expand its markets in spite of a huge
demand for unmet legal services, preferring instead to control entry and beha-
viour of its members through ethical rules which emphasise the concept of ser-
vice. A more simple explanation is that the profession secured a monopoly of
audience rights and non-contentious work which sheltered it from economic
change until the abol ition of the conveyancing monopoly forced it to seek new
types of work, to begin to align its organisational structures with those of busi-
ness and to abandon major ethical restraints relating to competition andadvertise-
ment. Burrage accepts that the autonomy of the professions will continue to be
squeezed between the state and the market and it is therefore a pity he has not
continued his analysis to discuss the e¡ects which have followed French and Brit-
ish entry into the European Union.The very di¡erent revolutions in France and
England have produced two di¡erent types of practitioner who have now
become trans-national partners in a new political and economic superstate.
The book maynot be convincing in providing a satisfactory framework forthe
overall justi¢cation for the relationships which Burrage seeks to establish and to
be over-selective in the historical material it presents. Nevertheless, it remains an
important and impressive study, rich in historical detail and unafraid to ask and
answer questions, not generally considered, about the reasons for the growth and
transformation of the three legal professions concerned. It provides fresh insights
into the history of lawyers and their work and is likely to remain a major source-
book for historians and sociologists working in this area.
Cyril Glasser
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Andrew D. Murray, The Regulation of Cyberspace: Control in the Online
Environment, xxii + 274 pp, incl Index, pb d29.99, hb d95.00 Abingdon:
Routledge Cavendish, 2007
The central claim made in Andrew Murray’s most recent book is that cyberspace
is a complex, even chaotic, environment ^ cyberspace, as it were, is a regulatory
space with special characteristics. It followsthat regulators should act inways that
take account of ‘the unique nature of the network environment’which, in turn,
implies the‘need for a more cohesive, measured, prudent and non-interventionist
approach’ (54).
Having said that, I am not quite sure where to start with this review. Like
cyberspace itself, there is a great deal in this book. For readers, it is all veryeasy:
readers simply start at the beginning, with the author’s ¢rst encounter with the
web (as an Edi nburgh undergraduate), and then read on r ight through to the clos-
ing invitation to embrace the uncertainty that is cyberspace. In between, readers
will ¢nd, among many other things, exceptionally clear accounts of the disputes
n
University College,London.
Reviews
879
r2007 The Authors.Journal Compilation r2007 The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2007) 70(5)MLR 872^886
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