In my final post on the subject of “respectability” of lawyers (the first four can be found here, here, here and here), I’d like to tie my thoughts together, discussing what the various parties can do to make Bird and Orozco’s thesis of assimilation of lawyers into corporate business teams the “new normal”.  This should give lawyers more career opportunities in the future, slow the loss of influence of the legal profession in businesses, and make legal education a more attractive choice.  Much of the discussion in academia has ignored the in-house counsel approach as being a viable option for the woes of the legal industry.  Below the fold, this post will discuss the roles that academia, in-house counsel, and business firms each may play in increasing the potential for success of a new model for business lawyers.

In my first post of this series, I asked whether business leaders had unknowingly provided the legal industry with a long-term solution to declining interest in the legal profession and potential waning influence.  I suggested that business leaders may be the driving force that ends up saving the legal profession.  In my second and third posts, I discussed the current state of in-house attorneys and law firms.  Today is my birthday, so it is a great present to be able to share my view on the future of the legal profession, and how shifts may occur. 

Eventually, corporations can (and most probably will, in my view) evolve their thinking about “legal strategies” (as Professors Bird and Orozco suggest) to the point that lawyers are essential resources in developing sophisticated corporate planning. In order for this evolution to take place throughout the business world to any great degree, it will take time, experience, and success with the legal strategy concepts.  In other words, lawyers must become valuable not only for their legal skills, but also because they have inherent business talent resulting from advanced training. 

 

If this conversion is to occur, companies