Are We Relevant Today?

• Author: Adam Newhouse
• Pages: 65-65

65

PART THREE

Are We Relevant Today?

Overview of Part Three for the Busy Lawyer

The reports of the demise the legal profession that gained popularity

in the wake of the Great Recession have been largely exaggerated. As

long as people compete for business resources, they will need personal-

ized legal protection. You cannot ask a layperson to handle an appeal

of a complex legal case, or draft an international aircraft lease, no mat-

ter how well equipped his or her library of legal forms and information

may be. It takes more than knowledge of law or access to legal tem-

plates to render reliable counsel. Legal knowledge must be applied to

actual situations in a way that can only reveal itself through long-term

immersion in the legal tradition. Indeed, the habits of thought resulting

from such immersion hold the key to the ability to render competent

legal counsel.

Nonetheless, the reports of the profession’s demise cannot be

brushed aside that lightly. Just listening to the current depressing story

of the profession—a story we have actively helped create—makes many

lawyers nervous. Determined to reinvent themselves following the

Great Recession, they experiment with new business models, focusing

mainly on more flexible fee arrangements. While these attempts are

certainly welcome by clients, they are hardly adequate to significantly

improve our public story. At best, all they accomplish is to put us in a

place where we should have been all along in the years leading to the

global financial crisis.

Alas, the business world of today bears little resemblance to the

business conducted in those years. There is a whole new economy

out there with a new robust culture to match. There are new rules of

engagement, new ways to succeed, and new ways to lead. Learning and

excelling in these new ways is today’s challenge and opportunity.

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