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Tomorrow’s Lawyerby Mark EricssonJoe is no ordinary Joe. He ownsa high-tech company. Todayhe is hiring a marketing director.Joe goes to his computerand types “employment agreementmarketing director” into Google. Hefinds templates and articles outliningthe process and the issues. Hedrafts his agreement using one ofthe templates. However, he has afew issues that he feels require moreexpertise, experience and an understandingof his business. He emailsthe contract to his lawyer with thespecific issues that he would likeaddressed. Is this where the practiceof law is headed?If Joe were one of the larger Britishfirms, he could have dialed intoa collaborative effort by law firmsthat provide a computer programwith a decision tree, which whenfilled out, produces a final draft ofan employment agreement. Englishfirms in this case act as the expertsin a computer-programming project.Through Listservs, legal consumersask others how they havesolved their problems and comparecosts. Is this where the practice oflaw is headed?The agent of change is the cost oflegal advice and representation. Thepractice of law is going to change.Legal advice is too expensive. Lawyersare pricing themselves outof the market. Twenty-five yearsago, the average partner pay at thenation’s top 100 law firms was 11times higher than that of the averageAmerican worker. Today, it is 23times higher. The 2010 median payof a lawyer was $112,760 per year.Interestingly, the U.S. Bureau of LaborStatistics finds that when askedabout work related experience oron-the-job-training, the response is“none.” As lawyers, we find everyday that we have to tell clients thatthey can’t afford our services or wefind that they cannot pay us oncethe services are provided.Who are the future clients whowill be able to afford us? This is aquestion little addressed in lawschools. There are basically largebusinesses, small businesses such asJoe’s business, the wealthy and therest of us. It is fair to say that the firstthree categories are and will continueto become more sophisticatedconsumers of legal services and thefourth will lose access.The nature of recessions is changing.Until 1981, the country snappedout of a recession in six months. In24MAY 2013