Description

About the Talk

Professor Rozema investigates which types of occupational licensing requirements effectively protect the public. He employs professional discipline as a measure of harm and leverages substantial state-level variation in distinctive licensing requirements for American lawyers. Using data from 34 states between 1984 and 2019, he finds evidence suggesting that the only requirements that reduce harm are those that restrict entry for certain high-risk individuals. Even with these requirements, however, it takes more than a decade after a lawyer obtains a license for any noticeable reduction in harm to materialize, and the cumulative impact on harm remains small in absolute terms.

About the Speaker

Professor Rozema is interested in understanding all aspects of the legal profession and legal institutions. Much of his research focuses on studying how society should structure and regulate the legal profession, courts, and law schools. Other parts of his research explore more descriptive aspects of the profession, including documenting diversity along several dimensions. A common thread of his research is collecting novel data and developing empirical methods to provide new facts and insights to help create a better legal system.