What is a lawyer?

(Thanks to Dilbert.com)

It's a hoary old question, tired and probably pointless today. Yet Jonathan Goldsmith has asked it again as he works the room at the International Bar Association's meetings in Tokyo. He tries to answer his question using what we call the "trait" theory of professions. Do you pass exams? Do you have ethical codes? Is the work exclusively yours?

The result is of course equivalent to how long is that string? As long or as short as you'd like. This type of approach doesn't get you anywhere.

What is particularly noticeable to anyone who studies lawyers, legal professions and professions in general is Goldsmith's singular lack mention of the types of conditions under which lawyers and professionals work. The organisation whether it be law firm or hospital is now crucial to understanding the nature of professional life and work.

Goldsmith talks about "the lawyer" in the abstract as a myth almost rather than someone engaged in expert labour within an organisational setting. Even that most singular of legal professions, the barrister, is really a creature of the organisation.

The Lawyer today published a report on the UK top 200 law firms with a special section on the top ten chambers. They are listed by chambers earnings and revenue per barristers within each chambers, not by single barristers.

Being a lawyer is another occupation like most. Goldsmith's thinking is indicative of a desire for a "golden age" of lawyering, which probably never existed--only in misty dreams. He alludes to but tries to avoid the idea that lawyers are no longer exclusive.

Machines, paralegals, technicians, accountants, consultants even are all engaged in the "practice" of law these days. They may not call themselves lawyers but they do law. The new legal services markets now emerging are signs that the distinctiveness of the lawyer is being eroded.

It might mean that lawyers' skills are redundant. I think this unlikely. Or it could mean that lawyers' skills are inadequate to the demands of today's business and legal markets. If they are inadequate then others invade your turf and take your work. So it's up to the profession(s) and the academy to (re)produce lawyers/professionals fit for the modern age. And don't worry about definitions. Hardly anyone cares.

(Thanks to Dilbert.com)

And on that last point, Law Without Walls is gearing up for its new session next January.