It is a broad and highly lucrative industry, dealing with everything from family disputes to international business operations. And a long-term failure to rejoin the Lugano Convention could represent a grave threat to the UK's world-beating legal services sector, as well as creating difficulties for large companies and ordinary people alike. The UK dropped out of the treaty as a consequence of Brexit, and applied to rejoin in April 2020. According to the Law Society, legal services added nearly £60 billion ($83 billion) to the UK economy in 2018, while in 2017 exports of legal services hit £5 billion ($6.9 billion). The reputation of English law has, Devine says, made it the "preferred law of business and international contracts."

Source: CNN July 28, 2021 04:19 UTC