Peraturan Publisiti Dalam Profesion Guaman: Justifikasi Ke Arah Penilaian Semula

Traditionally, the legal professions are heavily regulated by statutory laws and self-regulatory rules issued by professional bodies. With respect to professional conduct, for example, there are often rules on publicity which either totally prohibit lawyers from publicizing their services, or allow but subject to many restrictions. Such prohibitions or restrictions can be an impediment to innovation and efficiency. For several decades, for instance in most OECD countries, there has been a tendency to relax or even abolish the prohibitions or restrictions on publicity. Several reasons have been given to justifY this tendency, such as, the advent of global competition, the rights of information of the consumers, the development of information and communication technology, and the tendency of other professions in liberalizing their publicity rules. In Malaysia, however, our publicity rules are rather archaic, inconsistent with current development and do not form a proportionate balance between the interests of the profession and of the public. Based on the literature review and observation done by the authors, this article enumerates justification given by other countries in liberalizing their pUblicity rules. The authors find that the same justification can be adopted in reviewing publicity rules which regulate our legal profession. In addition, this article also outlines prohibitions and restricUons which are currently contained in our publicity rules.