TIME
A new book by a former litigator at Kirkland & Ellis, one of the nation’s largest law firms, has delivered a frisson 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 powerful long-term trends. The word bubble is an overstatement — it is hard to believe that the legal profession will end in the sort of high-speed implosion that subprime mortgages did. But the legal profession is facing some fundamental changes and Harper deserves credit for sounding the alarm.
Harper begins his case with a basic and troubling set of facts: roughly 45,000 law students graduate each year with an average of more than $100,000 in debt — and only about half of them will find long-term, full-time jobs that require a legal degree. Even for graduates who get law jobs, he argues, the legal world is changing fast. Law firms that once prized professionalism and collegiality, he says, are increasingly operating like typical bean-counting businesses. And many law graduates are only finding work as “contract attorneys,” which often means doing document-review drudgery for low pay.
The decline in the market for lawyers is being driven by an array of forces. For some time now, but particularly since the economic downturn of 2008, corporate clients have been less willing to sign off on hefty legal bills. They have increasingly been balking at the top hourly rates of $1,000 that some partners charge — and at costly expenses, ranging fromair travel to sushi dinners to copying charges.
