The Death of the Buggy-Whip Industry, etc.
The buggy-whip industry, horse-stable industry, leather saddle industry, and a hudred others, went out of business the day Henry Ford's first horseless carriages rumbled off the assembly-lines in Detroit. Of course, it was some time before all of these industry participants passed away. They didn't simply blink out of existence ... at first.
What does that have to do with lawyers? Consider it last call before the bar closes, for good.
This piece in the ABA Journal may be the most important read of 2011, but not because it reveals anything new. God knows we've all been told for years that the ship is headed over the falls. But in this piece the authors document how screwed lawyers are, how we compare to other industries, and why the reckoning that we now face was actually inevitable.
Spoiler alert: turns out the legal industry did not die recently - that happened a century ago. However, its corpse has been carrying on since then like nothing was wrong. That is until it began to collapse under its own weight. Dood news? There's a fix. Bad news?Law grads for the next 10 years will have to suck it up just like the real estate market, the mortgage market, etc. Most of them will never see another boom in their lifetime.
By the way, anybody know where I can buy a new buggy-whip?
