Reshaping American Law

Paper Summary:

The paper looks at the elements within the practice of law in America that have been changing, including the shift of the balance of power within the profession toward today's younger lawyers. The writer also cites the growing number of women and minorities as well as an increasing number of "employees" who are replacing the old model of professional independence, the solo practice.

From the Paper:

"In many ways the huge growth in the number of lawyers and the increased competition will, as Abel claimed, contribute to the overhaul of the profession. As Heinz's and Laumann's study of the social structure of the Chicago Bar shows, for example, the sharp division of labor along personal- and corporate-client lines has a deep effect on the coherence of the profession. In the 1950s, for example, the bar would probably have reached a quick consensus that only lawyers should be allowed "to search real estate titles and handle the closings of home sales," barring anyone else from performing these lucrative tasks by making such actions "the unauthorized practice of law" (Heinz & Laumann 31-32). But with today's growing specialization and increased competition among lawyers themselves, the lawyers who represent real estate brokers and title companies--and whose clients would rather not employ lawyers for such functions--are pitted against the lawyers whose middle-class clients buy and sell homes and businesses. The latter group depends on real estate closings as a major source of income and the two sides clash, leaving the profession as a whole unable to support the inclusion of this profitable activity within the profession's prerogatives."

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