Lawslot

Why am I not surprised at Catrin Griffith’s leader in The Lawyer, Why the law’s no safe haven.

. . . for a generation that has been raised on tales of riches, it will take a while for reality to sink in. Indeed, plenty of graduate recruitment heads are privately frustrated at Generation Y, which has been used to having everything on a plate, and hope the credit crunch could be the making of its members.

But perhaps the real reason why “opportunities for those entering the ­profession now look rather more limited” is less about the credit crunch (though that undoubtedly is a factor) and rather more about what the future of legal services in the UK may be. It comes back to Stephen Mayson’s warning, “too many qualified lawyers, too many law firms” (see my earlier post, The C word, but which one?).

. . . and as for generation Y lawyers, see Jordan Furlong’s post in Law 21 back in May, How to work with Boomer lawyers.

In today’s FT Michael Peel reports on the very recent Smith & Williamson survey,

The legal industry is heading for a big shake-up as firms merge in an attempt to protect profits threatened by the credit crunch, according to a survey published on Monday.

The annual survey of leading lawyers commissioned by Smith & Williamson, the financial services group, said three-quarters of big firms expected to see more emergency deals as confidence fell, despite the industry’s supposed resilience.

This is not news to us in the profession. It has already started and the current economic mayhem is simply accelerating the inevitable.  In last week’s Law Society Gazette Lord Hunt, about to embark upon his profession-wide review of regulation, is reported as saying,

I will be listening to the views of the whole profession, and that includes the smaller high street firms as much as the global firms. I have a completely open mind about the best way forward. My message is – tell me what you think.

Let’s hope that there will still be some to tell him.

Another excellent article, Taking Advantage of a Recession in Kerma Partners Quarterly: a lot of sense and not just about weathering the storm but more how to make the weather.

One further thought is that in the UK the danger is that concentrating on getting through the downturn may mean that we ignore the impending changes in the legal services market. I am not sure that I would have used the expression ‘Big Bang’ (given that some commentors see the beginnings of the current economic crisis in the heady days of City deregulation 22 years ago), but see Peter Williamson’s Rehearsing for the Big Bang in this week’s Law Society Gazette.

And while looking at the Gazette, a stunning lead article Review of Regulation that nails once and for all the myth that we are one profession (for those of us at the coal face, we know we are not).