Trust in the World of the Global Lawyer
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In many respects, law practice involves a brave new work of global lawyering. On a daily basis, lawyers from Main Street to Wall Street represent clients with transnational legal needs. At the same time, lawyers face pressure to reduce the costs of delivering legal services. Cost containment initiatives include outsourcing legal work to subcontractors who provide services at a lower cost. Whether legal work is sent to Indiana or India, outsourcing results in less personal connections between clients and the lawyers who originally were retained to handle the representation. Increasingly, in-house counsel unbundle the corporations legal work, dividing the work among numerous law firms rather than relying on one firm to meet needs on a full-service basis. For many, these trends threaten the very fabric of the trust relationship between clients and their attorneys. In his forthcoming article, Big Law and the Marginalization of Trust, Professor Robert Vischer examines the role of trust in the current climate and economic reality of global lawyers. As the title suggests, the article considers whether trust is a casualty of the trends in the structure, operation, and regulation of law firms. Rather than simply declaring trust dead, Professor Vischer persuasively explains why trust is of vital importance to lawyers, the clients we serve, and society.
