US lawyer Bradford C. Brown reflects on the decentralisation of law & the rise of the legal services business
- Building a law business as opposed to a law practice.
For many years, lawyers have benefited from a structure that protects the practice of law from market forces—an ‘artificial moat’ around the practice of law, as described by legal thinker Ken Grady in his article, ‘Our confusion over what is a “lawyer”’ (The Algorithmic Society, 2018). Lawyering is a profession where in the early days, like an artisan, junior lawyers worked as apprentices to learn the craft under a seasoned lawyer, which created the notion of a guild. Inward facing Bar associations formed as fraternities of trades people, that—along with state licensing—limited competition.
Gradually, the law profession began requiring different skill sets as firms globalised into more businesslike structures. Yet law firms are still restricted by the rules that govern the profession of law, for example, those governing how a lawyer or law firm can market or advertise. Major law firms grew into global enterprises but because of these
