Are we about to see a shift to secret lawyering?

The recent "Ashley Madison" scandal left customers of this "service" (which promised privacy of customers' information), well, exposed with secrets that they wouldn't want to parade in public, and even, reportedly, caused suicides.

Yet, latest developments with breach of attorney-client privileges by law firms (disgruntled former employees of such law firms) or through exposure of their computer-based information to international hackers, show that what people do in bed with other people not their spouses may be the least of our concerns.

Well, now it concerns only clients of 50 U.S. elite firms - according to the recently reported threat to security of client information in those unidentified firms.

But, if technically such a breach is possible, it is possible with any other law firm whose computers are exposed to the Internet, and that is, probably, the majority of law firms' computers - where people need to do legal research online.

Just recently, a disgruntled employee of a Panama law firm spilled her former employer's client list to journalists - which led to extrordinary international scandals, at the highest political level.

Also, reportedly an international hacker recently announced that he is hiring other hackers to breach security protections and obtain client lists from the world's 50 leading U.S. law firms.

Since the cybercriminal is posting about his plans on forums, and is thus openly challenging those elite law firms, he may already have a plan and may already know some weakness that the elite law firms' security features are exposed to.

So, in the increasingly globalized and "internetized" world, the large clients of law firms are increasingly exposed to risks that may not be worth it.

What would be the resulting strategy of the government and the law firms?

To make names of the law firms themselves secret to prevent such targeting?

But what then about the state licensing requirement - where the law license of each attorney in the U.S. , as well as his or her place of work - is a matter of public record?

Will underground attorney licensing and underground lawyering by secret mammoth law firms start taking place from now on?

Interesting times we live in...