Can you imagine a situation where there are so many lawyers qualifying each year through the law schools that we have an endless supply of ‘enthusiastic and able’ young freelance lawyers clamouring not to get into the profession – there is is no room at the Inn or in the big City firms – but to join our new paralegal division, branded under a quite different and non-attributable name.
Can you imagine a situation where the rates we charge are so low, through volume and efficiency, that we can drive down costs in the profession and then disseminate information through the trade and related press and subtle advertising on the GoCompare model that prices in the traditional profession are, shall we say, ‘pacy’?. And, what if we were to set up our specialist division of solicitor-advocates; perhaps even luring a few renegade silks to front it? It would not be that difficult to build a ‘Stable’ (they call barristers chambers ‘stables’ in Scotland, I understand) of say 1000 solicitor-advocates, specialist in a very wide range of legal disciplines, and undercut the market. We could take on The Bar, and we could take on some of these enthusiastic and able young people who can’t get work in the traditional profession and we could grow to perhaps 10,000 solicitor-advocates in a few years and take over the entire legal profession’s representation in the courts of this country. In time, some of our Partners will be judges…who knows…perhaps, one day, even Supreme Court justices……”
Dr Erasmus Strangelove, Partner and Director of Education, Strategy and Psyops, Muttley Dastardly LLP, speaking at a recent meeting of The Partners.
Truth is often stranger than fiction… because, curiously enough…… the rise in power of the paralegals was being discussed by former Bar chair, Nicholas Green QC, and the idea of solicitors taking on the Bar by setting up solicitor-advocates on the chambers model was being mooted by Guy Berenger QC, a solicitor and a former senior partner at Allen & Overy, only last Saturday…as reported in an excellent article in the Law Society Gazette.
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Justgodirect are doing a series of interviews with lawyers and bloggers on their The Legal Brick Road section of the website. First up is Tim Kevan, barrister and author of 
Charon QC 