Outsourcing lawyers?

"Where have all the lawyers gone?," Larry Ribstein asks in a recent Forbes article. His answer: "To India." Ribstein predicts that the international competition will force the American bar to change the way it does things.

"The licensing requirement restricts the supply of lawyers in the U.S. and, of course, raises the price. Even lawyers performing the most routine services must pay $100,000 or so for a legal education, plus three years of their time and thousands for a bar exam and bar review course. No wonder legal services are priced out of the reach of much of America even as legal regulation plays an increasing role in our lives.

"In the long run, for better or worse, this regulatory structure will not survive global competition. It is threatened not only by India and other outsourcing venues, but also by loosening restrictions on law practice in the U.K., Europe and Australia, which now has the first publicly traded law firm. Hedge funds already are providing outside financing for litigation. The capital markets offer the legal services industry a glittering pile of cash for remodeling. Even lawyers must see that licensing laws keep them from competing in the world that is rather than protecting them from competition in the world that was."

This has important implications for legal education as well. The legal academy nationwide will be forced to investigate new methodologies that cut costs without sacrificing quality, and I imagine that distance learning will come to play an increasingly important role.