Page 226 - Leaders in Legal Business - PDF - Final 2018
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Chapter 8 – Epilogue

Stephen J. McGarry1

Founder, AILFN, Lex Mundi, WSG,

& HG.org

At its core, the argument (against advertising) presumes that attorneys must
conceal from themselves and from their clients the real-life fact that lawyers earn
their livelihood at the bar. We suspect that few attorneys engage in such self-
deception.… Bankers and engineers advertise, and yet these professions are not
regarded as undignified.

- Bates v. Arizona, 433 U.S. 350, 369 (1977)

The business of law has radically changed over the past 40 years. This change was
underway before Bates v. Arizona, in which the Supreme Court authorized advertising. The case
transported the business of law out of the shadows and into the open. It meant that lawyers had
the constitutional right to treat the practice and profession of law as a business.

The case was brought against John Bates and Van O’Steen, partners in a two attorney
legal clinic they started almost right out of law school. While the case involved only a small
printed ad in the local newspaper advertising reasonable priced legal service, the ripple effects
from the decision ultimately have produced a tsunami going beyond the United States. It affected
the entire world’s legal profession. Internationalization and now globalization spread the idea
around the world that law is indeed a business with advertising, marketing, pictures, websites,
logos, directories, rankings, mergers, bankruptcies, alternative structures, consultants, networks,
takeovers, and more.

Ethic rules were not ignored, but they simply could not apply when dozens of firms had
more than 15 offices outside of London or New York. Advertising their offices in the United
States meant indirectly advertising the offices in other countries. Local firms remained
handcuffed by the rules and sought out business alternatives to protect their market. The
underlying ethical rules governing the practice and the business of law began to erode.

1 Stephen McGarry, B.A., M.A., J.D., and LL.M. (Taxation), founded World Services Group (WSG), a multidisciplinary network, in 2002. As
president, he grew it to 150 firms that have 21,000 professionals in 600 offices in more than 100 countries. In 1989 McGarry founded Lex Mundi,
the world’s largest law firm network. As president, he grew it to 160 law firms that today have 21,000 attorneys in 600 offices in 100-plus
countries. These two networks represent 2 percent of all the lawyers on earth. In 1995, he founded HG.org, one of the first legal websites. Today,
it is among the world’s largest sites with more than five million pages and 900,000 users each month who download almost two million pages.
McGarry is admitted by exam to the bars of Minnesota, Texas, and Louisiana. In 2002, American Lawyer Media (ALM) published McGarry’s
treatise on Multidisciplinary Practices. McGarry has authored numerous articles on associations and international business transactions.
Attorney Editor: Jennifer Kain Kilgore is the attorney editor for both AILFN and Enjuris.com. She previously worked as an associate attorney
with the Boston-area law firm of Brown & Knight, LLC and concentrated her practice in the areas of estate planning, probate, business planning,
and real estate. She is also the principal of Writmore, LLC, providing editorial, research, and writing services. She was the managing editor of the
New England Journal of International & Comparative Law and was published in Volume 18.1. Ms. Kilgore has worked with the Massachusetts
Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the Medical-Legal Partnership | Boston, and the Boston Municipal Court.
She served as attorney editor for the popular financial news website Benzinga.com and was also the editorial assistant for two award-winning
regional magazines, Berkshire Living and Berkshire Business Quarterly. She is a member of the Massachusetts Bar. Ms. Kilgore graduated from
Ohio University (B.S., Journalism, cum laude, 2005) and the New England School of Law (J.D., 2012).


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