> The difference here is that there are professional associations with both the ability to discipline people who don't follow the rules, and a deep interest in doing so.
If I understand correctly, then indeed yes, it would be hard to disrupt this space. But I have a feeling someone smarter than me, perhaps even yourself, will find a way to go around it. At one point taxi medallions seemed unmovable.
Taxi disruption worked to various degrees depending on how much the local certification meant - in most locales it was just "Can drive cars" - in areas where there is a geographic knowledge test the ride-share disrupters have fared less well. I think it's essentially the same for lawyers - their certification is extremely non-trivial, a lot of laywers only ever get certified in a single state due to how much of an investment it is and how little value you get out of it.
I could see a proposition coming from the opposite side - trying to unify portions of the law so that the regional specialty becomes irrelevant - but you'd need to fight against a lot of unfriendly folks and sovereignty concerns to do anything on that front.
Instead, the market players we can see in the legal space today focus elsewhere - legal matters that are predictable enough that you can essentially mass-produce responses for needs. For common contract law this seems like a great fit - but as soon as anything gets complicated you need to pull a warm body into the mix.
So your target for disruption is law firms and your strategy is to do something illegal to build a huge business that destroys them?!?
Would it cut the need for the local experts? No. Would it reduce their numbers? Maybe, it could also diversify them. Would it lower the cost for the service? I also think so.