Not quite yet, no matter how hard you may be in favor of that result, says Harvard Professor David Wilkins in remarks to the Boston Bar Association Annual Meeting at the Westin Copley on October 20th.
Law school applications are down 40% from several years ago and yet only 50% of law graduates achieve jobs requiring a law degree. What is happening, and is this a paradigm shift or just a “correction?” The Professor says the answer is “unclear;” it is “too early to tell — ask me in thirty years.”
Whether or not it is a paradigm shift, it is not the death of lawyers. But there will be some changes. Law firms will fail, some lawyers will be replaced, and things will not be the same. 2007 isn’t coming back any time soon.
What is driving these changes? Globalization, information technology, the merger of things we thought to be separate (global vs. local; public vs. private; law vs. business). The law is a trailing, not a leading, indicator. But all lawyers are noting changes in the profession: a concentration toward big firms, growth of the size of in-house law offices, increased diversity including the rise of women in a profession which was designed “for a male lawyer with a wife who stays at home.” Finally, great competition among law firms for talent and clients.
What remains stable? This is a profession, and it is delivered by and to human beings. There is need for continuity at the core; the professional model maintains quality and principles.
Current systemic failures include inability to train young attorneys to be wise counsellors as well as technicians, and inability to provide services for poorer people subject to the justice system (mainly because legal services have become too expensive).
So readers of this blog won’t be getting rid of lawyers just yet.
I don’t think.