This essay charts the changing status of the death penalty in western societies, from a cultural universal three hundred years ago to a prohibited penalty today, and offers a sociological explanation for that great transformation. The ability to impose the penalty of death is an elementary particle of state power. That power was frequently and spectacularly deployed in early modern Europe as states asserted a monopoly on legitimate violence and absolutist rulers deployed force to subdue their enemies. Once states consolidated their infrastructural power, the ostentatious killing of subjects became less necessary. As liberal politics limited the legitimate use of state violence and established legal protections for individuals, and as cultural change softened state power, the death penalty became increasingly problematic. The character of state power, and the balance between liberalism and democracy, civilized refinement and humanitarian sensibility, explains the pace and extent of death penalty change in specific western nations.

This article describes the development of the Dutch bar, which seems to follow the international trends, the Anglo-Saxon trends in particular. These trends are internationalization, commercialization, organizational professionalization, specialization and differentiation. The Dutch bar nowadays consists of approximately 15.000 advocates, working in approximately 3.800 law firms. Approximately 3.500 advocates work in the Top 30 law firms, whereas the firms consisting of one advocate form the majority of the bar. Particularly during the last decade the bar has grown tremendously due to an increase in demand for specialistic legal service and advice. Due to new developments the client has become more prominent when it comes to determining the quality of the legal service, a phenomenon also known as ‘simultaneity’.