Ageism comes to the legal profession
Most people will agree that there are too many lawyers, an oversupply. (Parenthetically, I disagree; it seems to me that there is a dislocation between the supply and the demand for legal services, a situation that the organized bar has never been able to reconcile with successfully.) But I digress.
Assuming, for the moment, that there is an oversupply of lawyers, why should we care? Would that not mean the fees for legal services would come down? Would it not be best to let the marketplace handle supply and demand?
But, If the Bar wants to reign in the supply, how could they? Of course, get rid of some of the lawyers. (Making admission to the organized bar is another way, longer term. Economics seem to be handling this quite nicely, thank you. Law school admissions are down by 10 to 15%. Applications hit a 30 year low. Potential law students understand that spending many thousands of dollars to take the gamble that they will not be able to get a well-paying job at the end of three years is a fool’s gamble.)
Economics, once again, helps us answer the question of how to reduce the supply. There are more than 1 million lawyers in the United States. Of this group, it has been estimated that at least one half of this group are sole practitioners. Another statistic suggests that at least 400,000 lawyers will retire by the year 2020.
If we look at this latter group, and suggest that we treat it any differently than any other group in the organized bar, we would be accused of ageism, and prohibited discrimination. However, if we come up with a metric that is applicable to all lawyers, such as “competence,” then we are safe. Of course, if this metric also achieves our basic goal of reducing the number of lawyers available to serve clients, so much the better.
But, this metric is never applied uniformly. If we look at new lawyers, those who have been admitted to practice for three years or less, I am sure we will find many who are not “competent,” despite the fact that they have passed the bar exam. How many times have "mature" lawyers said, mostly to themselves, that they were happy that they were not the client "back then," that they didn’t know enough to be really competent to handle the matter they did …. that they learned "on the job."
What is the metric for “older” lawyers? Do they have to pass another bar exam? If yes why should age be the factor that determines whether they have to take a new examination? If not, what might it be? Nowhere in the time spectrum of a lawyer’s career is there a requirement for such an examination.
How many times have you, as an adversary, said to yourself my opponent is not very good? In fact, how many times have you said my opponent is not “competent?” Until the appropriate metric can be accepted and applied throughout the entire career life cycle, it seems to this writer that the real focus should be on meeting the needs of our clients who are not served or who are under-served, making sure that all lawyers, young and old alike, are “competent” and move away from even the appearance of ageism.
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