The biggest change in society since the industrial revolution is taking place around us.

Just as jobs which had appeared rock solid prior to the industrial revolution evaporated over a few years, the same process is taking place now.

Yet, despite all the publicity about the Internet and multi-media and working from home, there is a curious silence as to its likely effect on the legal profession.

The information revolution will change the rules and create opportunities in new areas as old areas of work dry up.The main changes over the next few years which will profoundly affect lawyers will be a continuing collapse of property prices in central, city and suburban areas, difficulties for retailing clients in large supermarket stores especially at out of town locations, a decrease in business from office workers in downtown areas, an end to the expansion of the motor trade and profound cutbacks in legal aid.

The growth areas geographically will be medium-sized towns with good transport links and recreational facilities and, legally, areas such as intellectual property and protection of the environment.The effect of working via a modem will be to encourage people to work from areas in which they would ideally like to live.

Most office workers doing repetitive jobs can now telecommute and with advances in technology this trend will become more apparent.

It has obvious advantages for the employer in savings in rent and rates for office space and als o means employees will accept lower salaries because they do not have either the costs or wasted time in travelling to work.

Solicitors will be affected at two levels, first by the leases and assets (including goodwill) they have acquired and secondly by the effect of the information revolution on their clients.

If you have purchased your building or taken out a long lease you may be unpleasantly surprised by the number of vacant offices around you and the rapidly decreasing value of your building and the cheaper rents being offered to competitors.

Take a long lease on your premises but with clauses enabling you to terminate the lease and move to lower cost areas following clients who will become more active as the information revolution spreads.If more people work from home, it will not be a good idea to cultivate clients who depend on, say, a large number of office workers coming into town unless you specialise in closing down businesses.

You must not target prospective clients or rely on existing clients whose businesses will die once the information revolution reaches them.

When buying equipment for the office you should realise that life for fax and photocopier salesmen is becoming tougher as big companies use e-mail and copy computer disks rather than bundles of paper.

Use this to your advantage by taking a tough stand in negotiations on price.Likely growth areas will be in warehousing and companies transporting goods.

This will be because computer shopping via a television screen will result in the closure of many recently opened out of town shopping centres as the costs advantage of selling by computer direct from central warehouses becomes apparent.

Clients who are investing in shops which are let to retailers will be particularly vulnerable.

A young lawyer offered a chance to buy into a practice with a large commercial client renting shops selling newspapers and magazines should decline the offer.

Electronic newspapers and magazines will spread quickly and such a client base will shortly be devastated.

Ideally you should develop your client base in areas such as intellectual property.A factor which is likely to speed up the information revolution will be pollution.

Already there are European Union proposals for member states to implement legislation encouraging people to work within a short distance from where they live.

If you are a lawyer relying on a regular flow of work from road traffic incidents or acting for companies involved in the motor industry you should seek to diver-sify.

Clients involved in environmental issues should be encouraged.A major effect of the Internet will be to make legal business more global.

For the price of a local call files of documentation can be cheaply transmitted electronically from one end of the world to another.

Setting up and manning overseas offices for lawyers will become less attractive.

The internationalisation of office jobs will mean there is more competition for jobs (including legal ones) which were previously considered safe.

These jobs will inevitably move to third world countries which have low rates of pay but good educational infrastructure.

On the face of it this should not concern lawyers, however this will be a major force in reducing the social security and welfare budgets (as less local people will pay tax) and will have an inevitable effect on the legal aid fund.

As a result of the international nature of work the generous western European social security net will be cut back drastically.

Lawyers dependent on legal aid work will be hard hit.

Unless you are co mmitted to carrying out such work in bulk at low cost you should consider dropping it within the next few years.In times of revolution unemployment and insecurity will rise.

Shakespeare's remark 'let's kill all the lawyers first' should not be forgotten.

The profession needs to appreciate the changes affecting the economy in order to understand clients' predicaments and advise them comprehensively.

Any profound change will produce casualties, people who cannot or will not adapt.

These people may be in positions to influence the media or national leaders.

Be doubly cautious if you are being brainwashed by a media sales pitch if the item being pushed is likely to be redundant as a result of new technology.

At a time of rapid revolution and upheaval in the world economy the wrong decision could mean the end of your business.