The underlying problem here is that linguistic changes can't change underlying facts. When we have some kind of linguistic usage that tracks some abandoned distinction (or one reduced in importance) it can make sense to change it. But unless you first reduce the importance of that underlying distinction linguistic change is at best silly and at worst condescending and insulting.
The reason physicians are using these other terms is that it's no longer just physicians doing medical care. Nurse practitioners make diagnoses, prescribe medication recommend specialist visits etc etc. So it makes sense to use a broader term to incorporate everyone who does doctor like things. Note that they are still making a distinction between those who can practice medicine and those who can't -- if the president of your hospital is an MBA or PhD they still aren't a clinical provider or whatever even though they have way more status than a nurse.
If the legal profession wants to include non-lawyers than it needs to do the same thing doctors have done and start letting the non-lawyers either provide legal services, own the firm or the like. I'm not saying they should -- there are important considerations both ways -- but when you have a hard rule that intensively curtails what kind of responsibility they can have, what jobs they can do what kind of ownership interest they can have etc etc without becoming a lawyer than that necessarily remains an incredibly important and salient distinction that no verbal shift can erase.
I'm struck by the extent to which the discussion -- at least as summarized here -- seems to center entirely on the legal profession's internal culture and workplace relations. I would've thought that the person whose interests are most at stake here is the *client* or prospective client.
A whole panoply of special rights and duties is activated when the person a client is interacting with is a "lawyer." Attorney-client privilege, for instance, covers communications "to or to assist" a lawyer or someone the client "reasonably believes to be a lawyer." (That doesn't exclude talking to a lawyer's agent "to assist" the representation, but it does require there to be a lawyer and not some other kind of professional at the other end of the line.) A strong linguistic norm of distinguishing between "lawyers" and "nonlawyers" might be seen as a rule to aid prospective clients in forming that reasonable belief.
Put another way, lawyer/nonlawyer refers not to a real difference in nature but to a real difference in law. And that body of law is meant to operate in favor not of lawyers or other legal workers but of members of the public who depend on them.
From my perspective, there are two problems with the use of the word "nonlawyer" in the typical context in which it's seen (lawyer dismissing the opinions/contributions of business professionals as "nonlawyers", creating a "them vs. us" dynamic):
- It is inaccurate. Many business professionals at large law firms are, in fact, lawyers who no longer practice law directly for clients. Knowledge management, practice management, learning + development, business development, pricing/finance - all are functions that have lawyers working in business capacities. As a lawyer who no longer practices, I maintain an active license because (surprise!) some of the work that I do in L+D requires me to be in good standing with my state bar. CLE! Performance management issues on which I act at the behest of the GC! Doesn't make me less of a lawyer (I have the law school debt to prove it).
- It is archaic. If you are not living under a rock, you will look to the horizon and see the wave of an innovation tsunami heading in our direction as a profession. One of the many, many changes that will happen is moving away from the billable hour and toward a project-based pricing model with value-added services billed out along with legal services, similar to the way other professional services firms operate. Today, I regularly partner with lawyers at my firm to provide clients with training, policy-related advice and business advice (particularly those in the ed tech space) - and we may someday charge for that service. Meanwhile, many more junior lawyers will no longer be billed to the client because AI will be able to do that work at a fraction of the cost/time. In other words, someday quite soon, "they" will be *you*.
As a side note, as someone married to a doctor - I have never heard him or any of his colleagues use the term "non-doctor" or "medical professional". They use the term "clinician" and that includes all people with a clinical degree - doctors, nurses, PTs, NPs, LCSWs, respiratory therapists, etc. Doctors have ENORMOUS respect for the non-MD clinicians and support team members (PCAs, etc) on their teams because that is their institutional culture and also because there is too much work, and the pace is too fast, for doctors to do it all themselves without compromising patient safety. The few doctors who treat non-MD clinicians poorly find themselves ushered out of employment (if they are an attending) or demoted to doing prostate exams until they learn their lesson (if they are trainees). Perhaps a model we should consider for our lawyer colleagues?
Allow me to add my voice to those that oppose using the term "nonlawyer." I agree that it's hierarchical and archaic. If such a distinction needs to be drawn, there's undoubtedly a better way to do it. Lawyers speak for a living, and many strive to speak better. This should be seen as part of that.
My experiences learning law and practicing law only confirmed that merely having studied law for three years in law school or having been admitted to practice law in a court is weak support for any sense of superiority. In my first year of law school, I learned a good bit about the Constitution and federal law from outstanding lawyers, esp. Laurence Tribe and Alan Dershowitz. But I learned far more from people who never were admitted to practice law before any court. Some never even went to law school.
That includes Yale Professor Akhil Amar (who did go to Yale Law School) and Andy Lipka (who never went to law school, but clearly knows an amazing amount about the supreme law of the land). Together, they host a podcast (Amarica's Constitution) that I listen to religiously. And Professor Amar's writing is far better and more insightful than any SCOTUS opinion I've ever read. The same goes for the writing of James Madison (the Father of the Constitution), who never went to law school and never even sought to practice before any court. The same goes for the writing and speaking of Abraham Lincoln, who never went to law school, and who is famous (and should be better known) for how he construed and applied our foundational documents, including to reverse one of the worst SCOTUS decisions (and multiple opinions) ever written (Dred Scott).
The underlying problem here is that linguistic changes can't change underlying facts. When we have some kind of linguistic usage that tracks some abandoned distinction (or one reduced in importance) it can make sense to change it. But unless you first reduce the importance of that underlying distinction linguistic change is at best silly and at worst condescending and insulting.
The reason physicians are using these other terms is that it's no longer just physicians doing medical care. Nurse practitioners make diagnoses, prescribe medication recommend specialist visits etc etc. So it makes sense to use a broader term to incorporate everyone who does doctor like things. Note that they are still making a distinction between those who can practice medicine and those who can't -- if the president of your hospital is an MBA or PhD they still aren't a clinical provider or whatever even though they have way more status than a nurse.
If the legal profession wants to include non-lawyers than it needs to do the same thing doctors have done and start letting the non-lawyers either provide legal services, own the firm or the like. I'm not saying they should -- there are important considerations both ways -- but when you have a hard rule that intensively curtails what kind of responsibility they can have, what jobs they can do what kind of ownership interest they can have etc etc without becoming a lawyer than that necessarily remains an incredibly important and salient distinction that no verbal shift can erase.
I'm struck by the extent to which the discussion -- at least as summarized here -- seems to center entirely on the legal profession's internal culture and workplace relations. I would've thought that the person whose interests are most at stake here is the *client* or prospective client.
A whole panoply of special rights and duties is activated when the person a client is interacting with is a "lawyer." Attorney-client privilege, for instance, covers communications "to or to assist" a lawyer or someone the client "reasonably believes to be a lawyer." (That doesn't exclude talking to a lawyer's agent "to assist" the representation, but it does require there to be a lawyer and not some other kind of professional at the other end of the line.) A strong linguistic norm of distinguishing between "lawyers" and "nonlawyers" might be seen as a rule to aid prospective clients in forming that reasonable belief.
Put another way, lawyer/nonlawyer refers not to a real difference in nature but to a real difference in law. And that body of law is meant to operate in favor not of lawyers or other legal workers but of members of the public who depend on them.
From my perspective, there are two problems with the use of the word "nonlawyer" in the typical context in which it's seen (lawyer dismissing the opinions/contributions of business professionals as "nonlawyers", creating a "them vs. us" dynamic):
- It is inaccurate. Many business professionals at large law firms are, in fact, lawyers who no longer practice law directly for clients. Knowledge management, practice management, learning + development, business development, pricing/finance - all are functions that have lawyers working in business capacities. As a lawyer who no longer practices, I maintain an active license because (surprise!) some of the work that I do in L+D requires me to be in good standing with my state bar. CLE! Performance management issues on which I act at the behest of the GC! Doesn't make me less of a lawyer (I have the law school debt to prove it).
- It is archaic. If you are not living under a rock, you will look to the horizon and see the wave of an innovation tsunami heading in our direction as a profession. One of the many, many changes that will happen is moving away from the billable hour and toward a project-based pricing model with value-added services billed out along with legal services, similar to the way other professional services firms operate. Today, I regularly partner with lawyers at my firm to provide clients with training, policy-related advice and business advice (particularly those in the ed tech space) - and we may someday charge for that service. Meanwhile, many more junior lawyers will no longer be billed to the client because AI will be able to do that work at a fraction of the cost/time. In other words, someday quite soon, "they" will be *you*.
As a side note, as someone married to a doctor - I have never heard him or any of his colleagues use the term "non-doctor" or "medical professional". They use the term "clinician" and that includes all people with a clinical degree - doctors, nurses, PTs, NPs, LCSWs, respiratory therapists, etc. Doctors have ENORMOUS respect for the non-MD clinicians and support team members (PCAs, etc) on their teams because that is their institutional culture and also because there is too much work, and the pace is too fast, for doctors to do it all themselves without compromising patient safety. The few doctors who treat non-MD clinicians poorly find themselves ushered out of employment (if they are an attending) or demoted to doing prostate exams until they learn their lesson (if they are trainees). Perhaps a model we should consider for our lawyer colleagues?
Allow me to add my voice to those that oppose using the term "nonlawyer." I agree that it's hierarchical and archaic. If such a distinction needs to be drawn, there's undoubtedly a better way to do it. Lawyers speak for a living, and many strive to speak better. This should be seen as part of that.
My experiences learning law and practicing law only confirmed that merely having studied law for three years in law school or having been admitted to practice law in a court is weak support for any sense of superiority. In my first year of law school, I learned a good bit about the Constitution and federal law from outstanding lawyers, esp. Laurence Tribe and Alan Dershowitz. But I learned far more from people who never were admitted to practice law before any court. Some never even went to law school.
That includes Yale Professor Akhil Amar (who did go to Yale Law School) and Andy Lipka (who never went to law school, but clearly knows an amazing amount about the supreme law of the land). Together, they host a podcast (Amarica's Constitution) that I listen to religiously. And Professor Amar's writing is far better and more insightful than any SCOTUS opinion I've ever read. The same goes for the writing of James Madison (the Father of the Constitution), who never went to law school and never even sought to practice before any court. The same goes for the writing and speaking of Abraham Lincoln, who never went to law school, and who is famous (and should be better known) for how he construed and applied our foundational documents, including to reverse one of the worst SCOTUS decisions (and multiple opinions) ever written (Dred Scott).