LEGAL DATA-BANKS, THE GLUT OF LAWYERS, AND THE GERMAN LEGAL PROFESSION

Recent developments in higher education and in microelectronics have converged to alter the work and status of the legal profession. In this study of the subject of these far-reaching trends on lawyers in the German insurance industry, the professional jurisdiction of lawyers is found to have been greatly weakened. The need for the professional expertise of lawyers is greatly reduced because qualified nonlawyer business clerks have access through the legal data banks to legal knowledge once only available to them after many years of experience. Ironically, however, the excess supply of lawyers has led insurance companies to hire them to do work below their qualification level that can be done by qualified nonlawyer clerks; thus these over-credentialed lawyers find it almost impossible to establish or maintain any professional legal jurisdiction.