Two stories on ABA Journal Law News Now illustrate the ongoing split in the legal profession

A story caught my eye on ABA Journal Law News Now as I sat at the computer in my den, checking my email and messages from what amounts to my 'home office.' The headline on the post by Debra Cassens Weiss was "Work-at-home lawyer suspended partly for lack of a 'bona fide office'." (I'm home, for the moment, because I have to go to Wisconsin this morning to pick up my youngest son from college.)

I clicked over to read the sad story of Delaware practitioner Fred Barakat, a Pennsylvania resident who had a Wilmington office address in a suite that sounds something like the kind of set-up advertised by Regus (or any of the other 'virtual office' providers) for Chicago lawyers. Having a 'virtual office' is still legal in Illinois -- even where one's attendance at is (like Barakat's) "sporadic and unscheduled" -- but Delaware Supr.Ct. R. 12 requires lawyers to have a "'bona fide' office." A Delaware lawyer complies with this rule by being in the office for "a substantial and scheduled portion of time during ordinary business hours in the traditional work week." A temporary absence (as for a trial, say) does not violate the rule, but the office must be equipped with the "customary facilities for engaging in the practice of law" and must be "more than a mail drop, a summer home which is unattended during a substantial portion of the year or an answering, telephone forwarding, secretarial or similar service."

(What are the customary facilities for the practice of law anyway? A yellow pad or two, some pens, a computer, some law books? My den qualifies on these counts. Abraham Lincoln used to say that his stovepipe hat was his office. Of course, ol' Abe never tried to practice law in Delaware.)

At any event, despite the headline, Mr. Barakat's suspension was not caused solely by his attempt to cut overhead by working from home as much as possible. See, In re Barakat, --- A.2d ---, No. 397, 2013 (Del.Sup.Ct. 12/11/13). Still, a substantial portion of the Delaware court's opinion is devoted to Barakat's office arrangements.

The default sidebar on the ABA Journal Law News Now is a list of the stories most read on the site. My wandering eye noticed this headline there, "More Top Lawyers Break Through $1,000 Hourly Billing Barrier." It turns out that this was actually a 2011 story, also written by Debra Cassens Weiss.

Mr. Barakat, trying to work from home to save the cost of renting an office, and these $1,000 an hour superstars are all allegedly members of the same learned profession.

It's increasingly hard to believe.