EXPERTISE AND POLICY-MAKING: LEGAL PROFESSIONALS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Professional influence in policy‐making is generally believed to rest on professionals successfully laying claim to access to expertise – knowledge, understanding or experience – not available to others, above all politicians. On the basis of a 2005 survey of nearly 800 lawyers serving in local authorities in England and Wales, this article explores the relationship between specialization and political influence. Lawyers who shape policy use conventional routes for political influence, establish contacts with political officeholders, tend to identify less with the profession at large and are less likely to see themselves as specialists in any field of law. This means that the relationship between expertise and political power is complex and that the notion that professionals use their expertise to shape policy should be treated with some caution.