In his article, The Death of Big Law (2010 Wis. L. Rev.) (SSRN), Larry Ribstein (Illinois) predicted the collapse of "Big Law" and the reorganization of the market for legal services. At next Friday's (07/22/2011) meeting of the Los Angeles Lawyers chapter of The Federalist Society, Ribstein will lead a panel on Grading the Bar: A Debate on Compulsory Licensing for Lawyers. In his blog-post, Next Friday: Debating Lawyer Licensing in L.A., on Truth on the Market, Ribstein summarizes his view:
The current system of compulsory licensing for the practice of law is doomed. The question is not whether it will end, but when and how.
If state licensing, and state licensing (Bar) exams, go the way of the dodo. What does that do to law schools? In most states, only graduates of ABA-approved law schools are qualified to take the Bar exam. With no Bar exam, what happens to the demand for ABA-approved legal education, or to the demand for ABA accreditation?
At that point, formal legal education would be, at best, a matter of branding, of distinguishing a lawyer from mere providers of "servicios notarios." So, too, would accreditation become a way of branding, with the ABA only one of several law-school accreditors. But would the ABA retain its power if it no longer controlled the gates to the profession?
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