Esami di avvocato in Italia: eterogeneità geografica ed impatto della riforma

In the European context regulation of legal professions usually involves several restrictions on entry and professional conduct. Certain regulations are in the public interest as a remedy for market failures arising from asymmetric information and negative externalities. Before 2003, the admission examination in Italy was characterized by a national written and oral evalutaion by different local commissions for each Court of Appeal circuit. This procedure produced many territorial inequalities generating higher eligibility rates in the South of Italy than in the North. the 2003 reform changed the structure of the admission exam procedure, introducing a new methd of commission formation. This paper investigates upon the effects of the 2003 reform on eligibility rates which had modified the admission exam for legal professions in order to verify whther evaluations have become more homogeneous across Italy.