The goods and services offered by numerous big-box stores in your area have grown. Whether it’s Walmart or Kmart, Walgreens or Target, a customer can pretty much find anything they want or need: vacuums and optometrists, computers and travel planners, coffee machines and urgent care clinics, curtains and lawyers – well, soon to be lawyers anyway, according to a prediction by one legal expert.
Paul Paton, a law professor and a vice-provost at California’s University of the Pacific in Sacramento, hypothesized that lawyers, in order to remain competitive in a highly competitive industry, will likely offer their services next to tax professionals and pharmacists in big-box retail outlets in the not-so-distant future.
It remains unknown how much lawyers who operate out of a Walmart or Target store could make. According to 2012 figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), lawyers earn a mean annual salary of $130,880. There could be plenty of opportunities for young and upcoming lawyers to get their start by maintaining an independent law office at the local Kmart.
Despite the inevitability behind it, there still remains the ethics: how can a lawyer be loyal to clients when it is employed by a multinational corporation like Walmart, which has shareholders on the stock market to answer to? These are some of the questions he hopes to answer.
“The stock market is a road too far for many and a “non-starter” in the U.S., But should there be restriction on non-lawyer ownership, and how do you ensure client confidentiality in this context and avoid conflict of interest?” said Paton in an interview with the Edmonton Journal. “This is an extraordinary opportunity, as the university has an important public service role to play. That’s one of the most important things a public research institution can provide.”
However, Paton makes the case that this is already transpiring. Many of the large, established legal firms seek financial assistance from major financial institutions and thus these big banks want to have a say as to what transpires. In addition, there have been reports of law firms outsourcing their work to India as well as in-sourcing to smaller firms in small towns.
Another good example of this is the urgent care clinic industry. Corporate retailers have branched into this area and the same ethic questions have persisted. Nevertheless, studies estimate that the number of retail urgent care clinics have soared in the past decade.
“Retail clinics emphasize convenience, with extended weekend and evening hours, no appointments, and short wait times,” Rand Health stated in a report this past. “More than 44 percent of retail clinic visits take place when physician offices are typically closed. Price transparency and low costs may also be particularly attractive for people without insurance.”
Critics of this trend argue that the corporations could cut back on much-needed medical equipment and staff and cut corners to ensure a larger bottom line. Are these concerns founded in both the medical and legal industry? Not necessarily because if the patient or client is dissatisfied with a medical professional or lawyer’s work then they simply won’t patron there anymore.
If Paton’s prediction does come true, what will the Walmarts and Kmarts of the world offer next? Marijuana? Well…