[SwellJoe]

And what makes you believe the one monopoly bar association doesn't have the same market pressure to let as many people in as possible? They are also funded through membership dues, and have no public or government oversight.

[usea]

Nothing. I never asserted as much. I'm disagreeing with the claim that more associations create a pressure to "clean up." I can see no source for that pressure so I'd like to know what the person meant.

[SwellJoe]

Cool. I agree with you. There isn't very strong pressure to play nice in the current system...what pressure there is comes from judges, who often have been practicing lawyers and may be again in the future (or they may be hired by the bar association itself), so they may be inclined to keep the status quo if it is economically beneficial to them. Competition probably wouldn't put any additional pressure on this, though it might, if the higher standards led to some sort of better economic outcome for the membership. But, I don't see how that would necessarily come to pass given the incentives to play dirty.