A new book by a former lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, one of the nation’s largest law firms, has delivered a thrill to the already rattled legal profession. In The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis, Steven J. Harper argues that legal jobs are disappearing not because of short-term economic fluctuations but because of powerful long-term trends. The word bubble is an overstatement, but Harper deserves credit for sounding the alarm.
The decline in the market for lawyers is being driven by an array of forces. For some time now, corporate clients have been less willing to sign off on bulky legal bills. They have increasingly been balking at the top hourly rates of $1,000 that some partners charge. And as a result of globalization, an increasing share of American legal work is being shipped overseas. Lawyers in India and other lower- wage markets are willing to do the work for a fraction of what American law firms would charge. Taking away even more of this work: newly sophisticated legal software that can do "document review" and other tasks for which lawyers were once needed.
The legal market is without question soft these days. Last June, the Association for Legal Career Professionals released a grim placement report stating that only 65.4% of law-school graduates had found jobs for which it was necessary to pass a state bar exam. And the Internet is full of first-hand accounts of law-school graduates who say that their law degree has not helped them get a law job-and, worse still, those who report that their degree has actually hurt their job prospects, since some employers now tell them they are overqualified for nonlegal positions.
Harper argues that the profession’s leaders are a big part of the problem. He contends that big-firm managers are too focused on maximizing profits for the biggest, most rainmaking partners-at the expense of junior lawyers and the long-term interest of the firm. And he faults law-school deans for putting the interests and salaries of law professors ahead of the interests of their underemployed, debt- laden students.
Controversial as it is, Harper’s big-picture argument is undoubtedly correct, and it is a real cause for concern. Bar associations and legal academics have begun talking about how the profession should adapt -discussions that are long overdue. The biggest problem with The Lawyer Bubble is not the warning it is sounding but its title; unlike tulips and other speculative bubbles in the past, lawyers will always be a necessity not a fad. But then, The Very, Very Challenging Job Market for Lawyers doesn’t have the same ring to it. The book The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis ______.