I was at a meeting of something called the Council of Bar Presidents the other day. It is part of my duties as president-in-waiting of the Connecticut Bar Association. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing ideas with the leaders of different bar groups about what is working, what needs to be fixed and how we can all remain relevant to the professional lives of our members.
Then, as seems to inevitably happen lately when I talk with lawyers lately, the discussion turned to self-reps, the courts, and the seemingly overnight transformation of our profession from a solid and respectable enterprise into one where we are all scrambling for smaller pieces of a shrinking client pie while the burgeoning DIY market is growing, fueled by free information and a judicial leadership which has embraced the notion that if folks refuse to bring lawyers with them to court then the courts will find a way to serve them without lawyers.
