Thinking about tomorrow's lawyers today.

• Author: Young, Gwynne A.
• Position: President's page

From the demise of buggy whips when the automobile was invented to the dramatic downsizing of newspapers when information was available for free online, businesses undergo dramatic change.

So it is absurd to think our legal businesses are immune to change.

The reality is that the delivery of legal services in the 21st century is already undergoing dramatic change. The challenge is to pay attention, make adjustments to thrive (or do nothing and wither), and tap into expertise at The Florida Bar to make the transformation easier.

Big changes impact you, whether you practice in small, medium, or large firms.

Clients may no longer want to pay a premium to sit across a desk from their lawyer for expensive face time to solve their legal problems. Just as clients can go online and compare costs for the best rate on car insurance, why not for legal services? Law firms used to make a lot of money reviewing documents, and now we see outsourcing of this work to overseas lawyers or to "virtual" law firms.

International lawyers come to Washington, D.C., to work on a transaction while sitting in a hotel room, posing questions about how they should be regulated in this country.

Instead of using one law firm, clients have created "virtual law firms" composed of lawyers from different firms in multiple locations to handle complex cases. My firm, Carlton Fields, was involved in multi-district litigation, in which the client pulled together lawyers from different firms across the country to handle the cases.

The globalization of the practice of law is a reality. We now see lawyers from not only other states but also other countries involved in matters in Florida. Florida currently is one of the only states that does not give reciprocity to members of other state bars. As globalization continues, the pressure to provide some form of reciprocity will continue to increase.

The huge law firm Jones Day began with two lawyers in Cleveland in 1893 and now boasts it is "one firm worldwide," with 2,400 lawyers, including more than 400 in Europe and 200 in Asia.

Changes are dramatic because information technology allows lawyers to conduct business in ways we never imagined just 30 years ago: worldwide and 24/7. Indeed, when I started practicing law, I had no smartphone, email, computer, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, or the ability to Google on the Internet.

Look at The Florida Bar's latest Economics and Law Office Management Survey, and we see that 44 percent of...