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The maximum 'carrying capacity' of the profession must be hard to determine. The way we work is highly variable, as is the time we commit to work. I also wonder about the increasingly common practice of certain firms of sending out lawyers in denominations of two or more, which must be a handy way of increasing fee income.
There is also the issue of efficiency and the risible logic of getting rid of secretaries and replacing them with solicitors with nifty keyboard skills ( but sometimes little else). This must have lifted the numbers a bit.
The volume of litigation has also increased but it's not clear whether this is a bubble about to burst for reasons that my PI colleagues will now better than I.
The fossil record suggests that feast is frequently (and often quickly) followed by famine in terms of species numbers. However, my experience of young lawyers is that most of them are fairly sensible and adaptable. As ever, the competent will thrive, the less so will form CMC's.