For What It's Worth: Two articles in today's Law Bulletin suggest struc...

For What It's Worth: Two articles in today's Law Bulletin suggest struc...: Today's Chicago Daily Law Bulletin carries two articles that expose what may be a structural flaw in the legal profession itself. Too big...

Jack Leyhane points out today that (a) more lawyers are being created every year and (b) the demand for legal services is shrinking.  Worse still, lots of people who could pay for lawyers are now opting to litigate pro se.

He is, of course, correct about these long-term trends in the profession.  I graduated in 1991 and joined Mayer Brown in 1992.  From the first day I was there, it became obvious that there were extra people at the firm, people who were billing time to clients but who were not doing any real work.  The recession in 2008  obviously caused the corporations to notice that they were paying for extra people - lots of extra people.  The corporations became smart - they learned how to cut outside lawyers and bring the work in house or to handle the work very efficiently.  Lawyers who were used to attending team meetings were laid off never to return to the corridors of the large law firms.

The new problem is outsourcing - lots of work can be done competently by outsourcing firms in India and elsewhere.  The routine legal work that employed lots of people is slowly drying up - at least at the corporate level.

This all spells trouble for the law students who have graduated in the past 10 years.  While we produced too many lawyers in 1991, we now produce 2X as many lawyers as there are jobs to fill.  This means misery and unpaid debt for lots of young people.

It also suggests that the law schools have been graduating students who were not qualified to practice law and that this process (social promotion) has caused great harm to the profession.  It is difficult to quantify the number of people who graduate each year and do not have the skills necessary to practice.  What is beyond dispute is that this number is growing, even with an increase in law school tuition and more and more clinical programs.

Edward X. Clinton, Jr.

www.Clintonlaw.net