Losin the confidence game.docVIP

Losing the confidence game By Jordan Furlong ? Published: April 11th, 2012 SHARE:Tweet INSHARE Here are six observations about the legal marketplace for you to consider, each supported by a news report filed just in the last few days. 1. Fewer people want to be lawyers. Number of law school applicants continues to slide: “[US law school] applications submitted are down 13.6%…. That translates to about 66,696 applicants and about 484,576 applications…. Over the past two years, there’s been a 24.1% decrease in the number of law school applicants and a 19.6% decrease in the number of law school applications submitted… [T]he legal market … is expected to have difficulty absorbing the 45,000 students preparing to graduate law school in each of the next three years.” 2. Fewer new lawyers are finding legal jobs. Two law graduates for every lawyer: “The [US] Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS]estimates that 212,000 jobs will become available for [US] attorneys over the course of this decade, mostly as a result of replacement rather than growth. If the number and size of ABA-accredited law schools remains the same, that means 48% of law graduates this decade can be expected to get (not keep, get) a legal job. 3. More clients are using lawyer substitutes. The low-cost lawyer is not a lawyer: “The financial constraints of the last few years have forced companies and law firms to consider whether every legal problem must be staffed with attorneys who, thanks to the high costs of their education, demand higher salaries. If BLS’ projections bear out, it appears that clients and firms may have found permanent low-cost substitutes for many legal jobs in the form of paralegals, legal assistants and even accountants.” 4. Lawyers’ monopoly over legal services is dissolving. Co-Operative Legal Services granted license to practice law: “In the past six years, [the Co-Op] has built a ￡25m-plus, 500-person legal business without needing to be an ABS, but the licence opens up more opport