Book explores changes in lawyering here and abroad

Few would take issue with whether the legal profession is changing. Rather, the debate is over how fast, in what fundamental ways and whether most lawyers are ready for what’s coming.

A new book from the American Bar Association, “The Relevant Lawyer: Reimagining the Future of the Legal Profession ,” helps lawyers and law institutions prepare for change. The authors of this thought-provoking 20-chapter book advance and sharpen the dialogue within the profession about accelerating disruption of the legal services marketplace, and how lawyers and firms — from solo practitioners to global giants — can best adapt in this environment.

The authors, who represent a wide range of practice and geographical areas, share expert insights on how and why the profession of law is changing. The collected wisdom and legal expertise in “The Relevant Lawyer” will help individual lawyers, law firms, law students and bar associations better visualize and plan for their own professional futures.

The book offers diverse perspectives and a broad roadmap of the future of the legal profession while striving to promote dialogue and engagement — sometimes at odds with ABA policies, such as by suggesting alternative business structures that permit nonlawyers to own equity shares. The 20 chapters are organized in five overarching categories: transformation, equity, practice settings, regulation and development. A theme throughout is the need for lawyer professionalism and the bar’s commitment to justice if true access to justice is to endure in American life.

Essays include how alternative legal service providers can fill the justice gap; challenges for women and other diversity issues; virtual law practice; social media; new pathways for  “indie,” or independent, lawyering; and the evolution of lawyer regulation.

In the Foreword of “The Relevant Lawyer,” ABA President William C. Hubbard writes: “Only an unfiltered vision that confronts, rather than avoids, the profound change ahead can enable our profession to continue to define its own destiny in the face of structural upheaval while standing firmly for principles of justice. … Although the challenges ahead for the legal profession are complex and multifaceted, our commitment to the profession’s highest cause — access to justice — must be singular and unwavering if our profession is to remain independent and our very system of justice is to survive.”

Andrew Perlman, professor of law and recently appointed dean at Suffolk University Law School in Boston and vice chair of the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services, observed that the book “offers an extraordinary set of reflections on the legal profession and where it is heading, both in the United States and globally.”

Released by ABA Publishing, “The Relevant Lawyer” represents the work of the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism and Center for Professional Responsibility.