The Crisis of the Legal Profession: Centuries of Unstoppable Decline or Cognitive Bias?

Most modern publications about the legal profession describe it as in dramatic decline. The reasons are commonly attributed to broad societal changes, the alleged inadequacy of younger generations, the pervasive greed among lawyers, or the disruptive impact of emerging technologies. Broadening the reading to include less recent writings, such narrative of decay of the legal profession still emerges clearly and is characterised by the same traits. The recurrent structure of “doom complaining” seems to reappear with each new generation of lawyers. Building on empirical studies of lawyers’ work and memoirs of some of them, it is suggested that the decline of the profession in prestige, ethics, and collegiality is cyclical and more closely tied to the perception of those writing about it, rather than to the actual changes occurred over the years on how law is practiced.