The Internet brings every person in the world six-tenths of a second away from everyone else. Hypothesis 6 emphasizes that the changes are not going away no matter how much we may try to wish them away. Hypothesis 9 confirms that the number of lawyers is relatively high in our demographics and that competition is brisk, both within and outside the profession as we see ongoing erosion in our market. Hypothesis 10 suggests that the need for legal services will continue to grow and that lawyers have a challenge to produce services that have a perceived value at or above the lawyer's price for services. Laws and regulations are more numerous and complex.
Deregulation often results in more rather than less complexity.
Lawyers have strong skills in dealing with highly complex information and translating complexity into understandable information. These translational skills may be the most valuable of the future lawyer's practice arsenal. Hypothesis 13 suggests that the regulatory framework governing the profession will change as well because of nonlawyer competition, high number of lawyers, new technologies and public skepticism toward lawyers as major factors. I have participated in a number of trend-identifying meetings and the implications coming from those trends. Each group concluded that we would see the end of state bars and state bar regulations.