Lots of people I meet at cocktail parties and other events roll their eyes when I say that I work in lawyer ethics. Some ask whether the idea is not an oxymoron, like military intelligence. A few will challenge me to articulate the purpose of lawyer regulation other than turf protection. Because I have been to that rodeo before, I usually have a snappy retort, though I doubt I convince many. The American Bar Association recently tried to do the same thing, adopting a draft statement of regulatory objectives to serve as a guideline for those seeking to pass laws, rules or regulations related to the delivery of legal services by lawyers and everyone else.
I say everyone else because more and more, legal services are being delivered by nonlawyers, mostly over the Internet. These days, you can get a will, trust or contract drafted for free or very little money by going to a website. Ditto incorporations. There are sites that provide forms-filling services using official court documents as templates. Google “Connecticut divorce paperwork” if you want to see what I am talking about. When I began, this is what lawyers did, exclusively. Now, it is the rare lawyer who will bother to compete with the Internet for this stuff.
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