What Happened to Our Profession?

Our Re-Imagining the Practice of Law think tank got one participant thinking about what happened to the profession of law, and his thoughts were published on the front page of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journals this week. Timothy Tosta is a partner with Luce Forward’s San Francisco office, and he entered law believing that being a lawyer was about being “a respected, contributing community member, with the opportunity to exercise the intellect, while serving justice.”

Over time, Tim saw the profession veer off course, and he began to see evidence of the changing profession in “the explosion of lawyer jokes, the increasing number of lawyers leaving the practice, the escalating levels of divorce, addiction, and depression.”

Not a pretty picture, but Tim is on his own path to reclaim the greatness that drew him to the legal profession. His dream of what the legal profession could be held a larger purpose, one he had to reclaim “not only for [his] own benefit but for our society as a whole.”

Tim is interested in redefining what it means to be a lawyer and why it matters. Are you?