A new book by a former lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, one of the nation’s largest law firms, has delivered a thrill to the already

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问题     A new book by a former lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, one of the nation’s largest law firms, has delivered a thrill to the already upset legal profession. In The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis, Steven J. Harper argues that legal jobs are disappearing not because of short-term economic fluctuations but because of powerful long-term trends. The word bubble is an overstatement, but Harper deserves credit for sounding the alarm.
    The decline in the market for lawyers is being driven by an array of forces. For some time now, corporate clients have been less willing to sign off on bulky legal bills. They have increasingly been unwilling to pay the top hourly rates of $1,000 that some partners charge. And as a result of globalization, an increasing share of American legal work is being shipped overseas. Lawyers in lower-wage markets are willing to do the work for a fraction of what American law firms would charge. Taking away even more of this work: newly sophisticated legal software that can do "document review" and other tasks for which lawyers were once needed.
    The legal market is without question soft these days. Last June, the Association for Legal Career Professionals released a grim report stating that only 65.4% of law-school graduates had found jobs for which it was necessary to pass a state bar exam. And the Internet is full of first-hand accounts of law-school graduates who say that their law degree has not helped them get a law job—and, worse still, those who report that their degree has actually hurt their job prospects, since some employers now tell them they are overqualified for nonlegal positions.
    Harper argues that the profession’s leaders are a big part of the problem. He contends that big-firm managers are too focused on maximizing profits for the biggest partners—at the expense of junior lawyers and the long-term interest of the firm. And he faults law-school deans for putting the interests and salaries of law professors ahead of the interests of their underemployed, debt-ridden students.
    Controversial as it is, Harper’s big-picture argument is undoubtedly correct, and it is a real cause for concern. Bar associations and legal academics have begun talking about how the profession should adapt—discussions that should have begun much earlier. The biggest problem with The Lawyer Bubble is not the warning it is sounding but its title; unlike other speculative bubbles in the past, lawyers will always be a necessity not a passing fashion. But then, The Very, Very Challenging Job Market for Lawyers doesn’t have the same ring to it.
According to Steven J. Harper, ________.

选项 A、leaders in the legal profession are not to blame
B、the legal profession may burst like a bubble
C、there isn’t any unfairness in the legal profession
D、lawyers are actually a passing fashion not a necessity

答案B

解析 本题需要一定的推断,题干中的Steven J. Harper是本书作者,从作者所取的书名The Lawyer-Bubble:A Profession in Crisis,以及第一段第二句Steven J. Harper。argues that legal jobs are disappearing…可以看出Harper对法律行业的担忧,担心法律行业会像泡沫一样爆破消失。因而选B项“法律行业可能会像泡沫一样消失”。A项“法律行业的大佬们不该受责备”与作者的观点正好相反,第四段第一句就提到哈伯认为法律行业的大佬们难辞其咎(are a big part of the problem)。第四段提到,法律行业大佬们的做法损害了初级律师和公司的长期利益,法律院校领导的做法也把就业难、负债多的学生的利益放在次要的位置,C项 “法律行业不存在任何不公平”说法过于绝对,且与文意不符;D项中提到的necessity和passing fashion之间的关系在文章最后一段提到过,是作者的观点,不属于Harper的观点,而且选项颠倒了两者的位置,故D项“实际上律师不是必需品,而是一时风尚”错误。
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