The legal profession's dirty secret... it's still a profession
In many minds it was decided years ago that the legal profession is that only in name, having long since abandoned professional status in any meaningful sense to become a business. The reasons for this conclusion are so obvious - expansion, financial transparency, adoption of modern management practices etc - that they barely need recounting. And, like most cliches, it became one because there's a good deal of truth in it.
August 01, 2011 at 07:35 AM
3 minute read
In many minds it was decided years ago that the legal profession is that only in name, having long since abandoned professional status in any meaningful sense to become a business. The reasons for this conclusion are so obvious – expansion, financial transparency, adoption of modern management practices etc – that they barely need recounting. And, like most cliches, it became one because there's a good deal of truth in it.
And, yet, the longer I observe lawyers and law firms, the more convinced I become that the law remains basically a profession – rather than a business in the sense that many understand it. The outward changes that made people think of law firms as businesses were significant shifts but, in terms of the underlying ethos, they have had a surprisingly cosmetic impact. The mindset of a profession, good and bad, largely remains.
That's partly because you just can't sustain the values that many attach to these opposing standards. When the 'profession vs business' debate once simmered, these terms were a proxy for other characteristics assigned according to viewpoint. The critics of the emerging 'one-stop shops' saw the term 'profession' as denoting virtue, independence, long-termism and a dedication to excellence to the exclusion of seeking profit. Those on the other side of the line saw 'business' as representing innovation, expansion, ambition and the embracing of a service culture. You saw vice or virtue depending on where you stood.
But in many cases, good and bad qualities awkwardly mingled within both camps, stubbornly emerging in places where they shouldn't in theory be. Human nature is what it is. Old school professions were frequently capable of hugely self-interested behaviour – a tendency often illustrated by an attitude to client service that could be high-handed and unresponsive. Indeed, one reason that lawyers were supposed to have embraced business was because corporate law firms started to acknowledge the idea that client service was maybe a) a good thing and b) something through which they could gain an edge on rivals.
And some of that celebrated independence was as much a product of self-regard and myopia as it ever was of high ethical ideals. Anyway, the supposed independence of the profession was often a myth – when commercial law firms were smaller and acted for the same clients for generations it was easy to become hugely reliant on a small band of major clients.
The less respectable observation for those holding the wistful notion of a once-unspoiled professionalism, is that a profession is a business that is organised for the tastes of those already working in it, not those wanting its services (or those that wish to join it).
It is telling that some of the constructs of the modern law firm – such as lockstep -
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