Major U.S. law firms have been folding like cheap lawn chairs to meet the demands of a vengeful president. The White House has already strong-armed them into providing almost a billion dollars in free legal services. Forget Biglaw's incessant rhetoric about social responsibility and the law as a "higher calling". When put to the test, the major firms showed what we've always known: They're profit-motivated businesses. Here's how acknowledging that can broaden access to justice.
With no real competition or regulatory oversight to curb their excesses, large firms can jack up their rates and billables even as they prattle on about "visions and values".
Since retaking the White House, Donald Trump has moved to sanction several major law firms. It's retribution for the president's many years of futile suits and legal jeopardy parlayed into free work on his policy initiatives and right wing causes. Trump brought the white shoe outfits easily to heel with threats of EEOC investigations and the denial of access to federal courthouses, personnel, and work. The sanctions are almost certainly unconstitutional. Threatening lawyers who sue the government chills the exercise of the very rights the president is sworn to protect.
Major law firms hold themselves out as much more than professional service providers. They claim to be distinguished agents of positive social change. Paul Weiss, the first firm to bend at the knee before Trump, boasts of "a long history of commitment to civic-mindedness and corporate social responsibility." Kirkland Ellis claims to be "committed to advancing the communities in which we live and work, and we dedicate substantial energy, talent and resources to meaningful causes and initiatives that reflect our values and vision."
But when their bottom lines were threatened, the focus on "values and vision" disappeared. The firms could have sued to vindicate their rights and protect the separation of powers - they're lawyers, and very good ones if you ask them - but most seem to have barely considered it. Despite incessant, self-congratulatory promises to serve a greater purpose, when a crisis arose Biglaw focused on profits. That's not a criticism. It's what businesses do. But it's long past time for lawyers, clients, and regulators to see Biglaw for what it is: Businesses that follow the money. They are, to use a label at which these well-heeled, well-dressed attorneys and counselors at law will surely bristle, "ambulance chasers".
Almost 90% of Americans can't afford lawyers even for basic services (wills, child support, divorces, etc.) Entrepreneurs are no exception. Most small businesses have trouble budgeting for legal services because they've become prohibitively expensive.
Big law firms - along with prominent members of the Plaintiff's bar and largely useless regulators - have contributed greatly to pricing most Americans out of the market. They've stymied any meaningful industry change, arguing against the expansion of services paralegals can provide while supporting rules that prohibit attorneys from entering into business relationships with non-lawyers. The protectionists either oppose initiatives that leverage technology to broaden access to justice or so tightly control them as to negate any ameliorative expansion of the market. They've effectively created a Biglaw cartel to which the major providers jealously cling. With no real competition or regulatory oversight to curb their excesses, large firms can jack up their rates and billables even as they prattle on about "visions and values".
A central argument for protectionists who reject meaningful reform is that any non-lawyers invited into the industry will be motivated only by profit and both unfamiliar and unconcerned with the profession's "higher calling". However, Biglaw's capitulation to Trump's demands - as soon as the prospect of losing dollars and talent became apparent, and with no fight at all - demonstrates unambiguously that the major firms are as interested in the bottom line as everyone else. And with the canard that white shoe outfits are about something other than profits laid bare, a key impediment to industry reform should disappear. Paralegals, accounting firms, technology companies, and others shouldn't be precluded from offering some services merely because they're driven by making money. In fact, if being profit-motivated disqualifies a provider, Biglaw should be kicked out of the market entirely. After all, it's a fraught time for our justice system, and the major firms have the resources - both financial and human - to fight the president and stand for something bigger than their businesses. If there is a "higher calling" for lawyers, who in this case is better positioned to answer it?
Entrepreneurs - and all Americans - need access to justice. Opening the market to non-lawyer service providers as and where appropriate is essential. For too long, Biglaw and other protectionists have asserted dedication to a "higher calling" to oppose meaningful industry reform. That argument is now dead.