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2 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 449 (1988-1989)
Professionalism and Public Policy: The Case of House Counsel

handle is hein.journals/geojlege2 and id is 459 raw text is: Professionalism and Public Policy: The Case of House Counsel By TED SCHNEYER* Law practice, like medical practice, is changing. Some law firms have be- gun to use aggressive marketing techniques to attract clients, I and an increas- ing percentage of the bar work as salaried employees2 in large law firms3 or in corporate law departments.4 Sociologists infer from such changes5 that the line between the professions and other occupations is blurring, and not through a professionalization of everyone,'6 as was once expected, but rather through deprofessionalization7-the loss of a distinctively profes- * Professor of Law, University of Arizona College of Law. A.B. 1965, Johns Hopkins Univer- sity; LL. B. 1968, Harvard Law School; Diploma of Comparative Law 1969, University of Stock- holm; J.S.M. 1971, Stanford Law School. 1. On the growing use of advertising and other marketing techniques since the Supreme Court struck down retrictions on lawyer advertising in Bates v State Bar, 433 U.S. 35 (1977), see, e.g., Gray, More Lawyers Reluctantly Adopt Strange New Practice-Marketing, Wall St. J., Jan 30, 1987, at 25, col. 3 (discussion of marketing as a response to increasingly competitive legal market); Mid- dleton, Ads Pay Off-In Image and Income, Nat'l L.J., Mar. 5, 1984, at 1, col.4 (discussion of growing acceptance and profitability of lawyer advertising). 2. See E. SPANGLER, LAWYERS FOR HIRE: SALARIED PROFESSIONALS AT WORK 9-10 (1986) (citing statistics showing that the number of salaried lawyers in the United States nearly doubled between 1951 and 1980). 3. For evidence of the dramatic recent growth in the size of law firms, and particularly in the employment of associates, See B. CURRAN, K. ROSICH, C. CARSON & M. PUCCETTI, THE LAW- YERS STATISTICAL REPORT: A STATISTICAL PROFILE OF THE U.S. LEGAL PROFESSION IN THE 1980'S 13-15 (1985) [hereinafter cited as B. CURRAN]. 4. A national survey of corporate law departments in 1983 showed an average growth in in-house legal staff of 29% between 1977 and 1982. See Chayes and Chayes, Corporate Counsel and the Elite Law Firm, 37 STAN. L. REV. 277 n.l (1985) (citing COMM. ON THE CORPORATE LAW DEP'TS, Ass'N OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF N.Y. (1983) & ARTHUR YOUNG & Co., NATIONAL SURVEY OF CORPORATE LAW COMPENSATION AND ORG. PRACTICES (6th ed. 1983). See also Robinson and Confer, Soaring Fees Spur Dramatic In-House Growth, Nat'l L.J., March 30, 1981, at 1, col.4 (commenting on the results of a National Law Journal Survey, in which corporations reported bringing more legal work in house, and recruiting more attorneys directly from law school); Survey of the Nation's Largest Corporate Law Departments, Nat'l L.J., Apr. 4, 1980, at 26- 29; Apr. 11, 1980, at 26-29. 5. Another potentially important change in professional practice is the unionization of doctors or lawyers. Such unions did not exist in the past and are still rare today. See Johnson, Doctor's Di- lemma: Unionizing, N.Y. Times, July 13, 1987, at DI, col. 3; Note, A Remedy for the Discharge of Professional Employees Who Refuse to Perform Unethical or Illegal Acts: A Proposal in Aid of Profes- sional Ethics, 28 VAND. L. REV. 805, 819-820 & n.70 (1975) (commenting on the formation in 1969 of a union of legal aid attorneys in New York City). 6. Wilensky, The Professionalization of Everyone?, 70 AM. J. Soc. 137 (1964). 7. Proponents of the deprofessionalization thesis usually argue that changes in the structure of professional practice, especially the movement away from self-employment, are changing profes- sional values rather than the other way around. See generally Derber, Professionals as New Work- ers, in PROFESSIONALS As WORKERS: MENTAL LABOR IN ADVANCED CAPITALISM 3 (1982)

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