As I wrote some time ago, most of my writing and speaking these days is going to be focused on and directed to the aging profession. Mike Bowler, statewide bar counsel, recently redid his chart showing the age of lawyers licensed in Connecticut, and it is reproduced below. There are two takeaways that we should be focusing on: One is that the average age of the bar is getting up there, and the other is that retiring lawyers are not being replaced.

As you can see, the age distribution used to be a bell-shaped curve with the 50s as the high point. Now it seems to be more of a wave form, with a peak moving from the 50s into the 60s. According to Mike, who keeps these stats along with myriad other administrivia related to the management of licensure issues, the number of lawyers who register every year continues to increase because the bar members practice and live longer.

The total number of lawyers who registered in 2019 was 39,967, compared to 39,658 in 2018. The registration number includes a few thousand inactive lawyers who have to register (e.g., retired, suspended and administratively suspended). The number of active lawyer registrations is 33,328, a bit greater than the active number from 2017, which was 32,994 (a difference of 334). About one-third of active bar members are 60 years old or older, and nearly two-thirds (61%) are 50 or older. More than 20,000 lawyers in Connecticut (20,386 to be precise) are at least 50!

That's very interesting, and may be related to economic insecurity, the lingering effects of the 2008 recession and the fact that many of us boomers really didn't do a great job of planning for the future. Though it may take a bit longer, eventually many will leave. That brings up the other—and perhaps more worrying—trend, which is that we are not seeing new folks added to the ranks at the rate they used to be.

The October swearing in has historically been the biggest of the year, representing May graduations and the June bar exam. It used to be 800 or so, though I remember years when the numbers were 1,000 or more. Two swearings in, morning and afternoon, were required because there wasn't space big enough in the Judicial Branch to handle the crowd. Last October's swearing in was 125. That's a reduction more than 85%.

Law school admissions seem to be holding nationally, with some even reporting a "Trump bump" of sorts. I believe that at least four marginal schools have closed and a couple of others may be on life support. So legal education seems to be holding its own, if not a growth industry. But where are the new law grads going? Probably to government, business and industry, where compliance and administration issues continue to become more complex. Navigating the shoals of insanely complex data and identity protection regulations, export controls, foreign subsidiary and tax regimes and personnel administration probably requires at least a law degree, but probably doesn't require bar membership, occupational tax, client security fund payments or mandatory CLE attendance. And these jobs are mostly nine-to-five.

All of this is happening in an environment where there are increasing unmet representation needs (the so-called justice gap) among a larger segment of society and ever more alternative service providers offering legal and legal-like services on new and often unregulated platforms. I'm not sure whether we should call this evolution, revolution or devolution, but those who inherit the profession from us boomers, who will leave in greater numbers in the next decade, are going to inherit a markedly different practice and profession.

Mark Dubois was Connecticut's first chief disciplinary counsel. He's on a leave from Geraghty & Bonnano of New London while he teaches at UConn Law. He can be reached at [email protected].