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The lawyers most in need of help from the remainder of the profession are the new lawyers and those at the bottom end of the profession who are opening their own offices and catering to lower middle class and a low income clientele. These new lawyers often accept low retainers in return for enormous responsibilities and with little or no staff to adequately service their clients. The result is a tragedy where ambitious, competent lawyers often find their high entrepreneurial expectations derailed with disciplinary and other problems caused by their inability to adequately serve and represent their clients. The result is that consumers are then hurt because the legal profession has allowed these conditions to occur.

There are currently pending two (2) lawsuits that are attempting to address the shortfall of income for attorneys who represent the poor in criminal cases. But the problem is much greater than what has been addressed thus far. Moreover, it effects both civil and criminal lawyers. The profession has thus far provided an inadequate response in terms of addressing these problems.

The profession must deal with these issues because they are growing in their complexity each day, damaging the profession as a whole and also hurting the very clientele that need the services of competent lawyers.

This is more than a discussion of the quality of legal services provided to the rich and poor. It is a problem that inserts into that equation the new lawyers who are entering an already glutted, competitive marketplace and what they are doing to survive and co-exist with their more established and experienced colleagues. The ultimate question is, what will the profession do to rescue these new lawyers aside from letting them flounder. Some attorneys may feel that instead of developing a rescue plan that we should allow these new lawyers to destroy themselves thus weeding out those who are unable to compete. The problem with this scenario is that innocent consumers will be severely hurt along the way and the profession's indifference to the problem will harm the image that lawyers are attempting to rekindle in the years since the profession was brought down in its stature by Watergate and its aftermath.