There’s an old joke in Ireland about a tourist who asks for directions, only to be told: “Well, I wouldn’t start from here if I was you.”

Much the same could be said of the regulation of lawyers in the US. State-based regulation may have been appropriate when the US’ legal profession consisted of no more than a collection of sole practitioners and small single-state firms, but in these days of inter-state and international practise of law, it looks increasingly anachronistic.