The Future of the Legal Profession, Part 2

Previously I have you an introduction about the trends and uncertainties facing the legal profession as identified by the 2020 Study in my post The Future of the Legal Profession.  I will continue with what Ward Bower of Altman Weil, Inc. spoke of as the likely future scenarios. Ward identified four likely scenarios at his ACLEA discussion:

1. Blue-Chip Mega Merger Scenario
2. Expertopia Scenario
3. E-Marketplace Scenario
4. Technolaw Scenario

The Blue-Chip Mega Merger Scenario envisions a world where the mergers of big law firms continue and they swallow up medium sized law firms leaving solo and small law firms as bottom feeders.  The market for legal services is globalized and regulation of these behemoths beyond the scope of ability of national let alone state regulators.  If you want an example of what this might look like, think of the accounting profession.

Expertopia envisions a regulatory environment more like the present though perhaps some move to national regulation of lawyers and the mega-firms have failed to retain dominance.  Provision of legal services revolves around the expertise of the best and the brightest lawyers around whom smaller firms will coalesce to provide niche services.  Many lawyers would be doing mundane services within larger legal businesses.  The example here is the medical profession where the top doctors and surgeons are in great demand and command astronomical salaries while general care is left to lower paid family practitioners and their extended networks of lesser specialists.

The E-marketplace Scenario sees a world where regulation of lawyers is far more laize-faire than today because of deregulation.  Technology will be a catalyst, but not the core, for an industry transformation in which an array of Web-based technologies will make information more available and expert judgment more valuable.  Numerous types of non-lawyer legal providers compete with law firms for what was traditionally the province of the practice of law.  Technology, particularly true broadband connectivity, allows providers of legal work, whether lawyers or not, to do so from anywhere.

In the Technolaw Scenario, rising corporate investment in automation capabilities throughout the legal services industry, leaving only the high-end services to be delivered by legal professionals and potentially requiring a complete reconstruction of the traditional business models in the legal services industry.

In all likelihood, the future will be some combination of these scenarios.  Mergers are going on in the big firms and likely to continue.  Globalization can not help but affect how we practice law.  That said, it is hard to see issues of conflicts being simply overlooked and when it gets down to it, most any legal battle is one of ideas and facts not armies of lawyers.  Change is certainly in the wind and I am still digesting what this all means to the small firm lawyer.  More on that later.

Though pricey, the actual study with all its data is available:  The Legal Transformation Study: A 2020 Vision of the Future.

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