Ethics

Larry Ribstein recently posted his new paper, "The Death of Big Law," and I recommend reading it, though I resist some of his conclusions.   He argues that there are several regulatory reforms that are needed in order to facilitate the building of "the viable large legal services firm of the future."  Among the more controversial are his embrace of non-lawyer ownership, his recommendation that firms focus on developing legal services "products" rather than simply servicing individual clients, and his suggested importation of "the internal affairs doctrine" from corporate law, under which a firm could choose its state of incorporation for purposes of regulating its internal affairs.  The first two threaten to marginalize the relationship of trust that is at the core -- or should be at the core -- of the attorney's work, and the last reform obscures the notion that lawyers are part of a particular state's legal infrastructure, but maybe these are battles that are already being lost. 

The paper provoked a broader question for me, though: to what extent should we base the ethical obligations of lawyers on a perceived need to maintain the market viability of large law firms?  Thirty years from now, if large law firms have gone the way of the Edsel, what is the loss to society?  Economies of scale?  One-stop shopping for clients?  Lower salaries for law grads?