The firm turns 75 this year. This got me thinking: what's changed in the legal profession in three-quarters of a century? 

Of course, I asked ChatGPT for the answer, which seems appropriate since, of course, the use of AI itself must be the biggest change in the profession. And it's a change that we're well in the middle of now. Lots more changes coming there, to be sure. 

In any case, here are the top four changes over 75 years:

• Diversity Shift
  Women now make up ~40% of US lawyers, up from less than 4% in 1950. 

• Technology Adoption
  According to the 2024 ABA Legal Technology Survey, approximately 75% of attorneys now use cloud computing for work-related tasks. This technology didn't even exist in 1950.

• Legal Education Cost Surge
  The price to earn a law degree has increased dramatically. Just as one example, the cost to go to law school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1950 was $620 (in nominal terms, about $8,500 in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation), which consisted of $600 in tuition and a general fee of $20. In 2021-2022, the cost had ballooned to over $70,000. Indeed, the average cost of law school tuition nationwide has been estimated to be approximately $46,000 per year.

• Explosive Growth in the Profession
  There were approximately 220,000 lawyers in the US in 1950. Today, there are more than 1.3 million lawyers. Put another way, in 1950, there were roughly 1.5 lawyers for every 1,000 people in the US. By 2024, there were about 4 lawyers for every 1,000 people. Since 1950, the number of lawyers in the US has increased nearly five- to six-fold, while the national population has a little more than doubled. In other words, the growth of the legal profession has substantially outpaced overall population growth during that period.  

That said, it's hard to imagine what the profession will look like 25, 50, and 75 years from now.