Anyone who wished to reshape the way law is practiced in the United States could not be blamed for thinking that the easiest way to bring this about would be to sit back and do nothing. As essays by Abel and Nelson demonstrate, the face of American law is changing steadily and the balance of power within the profession will inevitably shift toward today's younger lawyers whose numbers include so many more women and minorities as well as an increasing number of "employees" who are replacing the old model of professional independence, the solo practice. Most importantly the cumulative changes in the profession in the 1970s and 1980s "strongly suggest that we are witnessing the decline of the professional configuration, if not its demise" (Abel, "Transformation" 19). But all the problems of law practice--even those that spring directly from the strategies of professionalism--are unlikely to disappear completely. If, therefore, one were to be offered the option of an 'all-powerful' position from which to make all the desirable changes in law practice it might be as well to accept.
Professionalizing the law meant that lawyers "sought to control their market and raise their collective status by regulating production of and by producers and stimulating demand" (Abel, "American" 128). Control over education and certification and the establishment of self-regulation meant that who practiced law, and how, was under the control of the profession as represented by the American Bar Association (ABA). In addition the profession adopted a variety of restrictive measures--such as minimum fee schedules and constraints on legal service plans--that enabled control over production by producers. As Abel explains, however, control over production of producers began to erode when the white-male predominance in education fell before the new wave of women and minority students attending new schools "at levels lawyers did not choose and through mech...