These are dark days for the EU. Many have noted that its ability to deal with the eurozone crisis is posing an existential test. If it fails, the whole structure could come tumbling down. Let us suppose that this might happen. Other than my being out of a job, what would happen next?

I shall look at the future through a lawyer’s focus. And I shall assume the worst of scenarios – that it ends with a bang, finish, nothing left. I suppose that in real life there might not be such a stark choice, between absolute end and full continuation, but that rather something might limp on. In any case, the EU-inspired laws in each member state would presumably stay on the statute books for decades and not be repealed, meaning a slow fade rather than a sudden melt-down for the dreams behind the EU.

The EU has been very good for lawyers. First, it has provided free movement provisions, which have permitted UK law firms to practise where they want in the EU. Before the 1977 Services Directive and the 1998 Establishment Directive, and also before certain notable decisions of the European Court of Justice at around the same time, there were difficulties in relation to lawyer practice: I know, because I had to deal with the tail-end of those difficulties with specific member state bars. Once the EU goes, there will no longer be an enforcement measure for the free movement of goods and services. I cannot believe that it is in the interests of UK lawyers – indeed, of European lawyers – for barriers to go up again, and for the Law Society to have to begin negotiating with the bars of the former 27 member states.

But will barriers be put up again? Currently, even with a legislative framework in place, there are problems of interpretation. We at the Council and Bars and Law Societies of Europe deal from time to time with issues which have arisen concerning individual lawyers. These are nearly always amicably and quickly resolved by a discussion among our member bars. But if there is no EU any more, and no law enforcement of the current measures, I see a gap quickly widening between the current law and its interpretation, a gap which will soon mean 27 different lawyer practice regimes. Barriers will indeed be put up again.

Another way in which the EU has been good for lawyers is in its measures towards harmonisation and convergence of certain laws. Many think this is more or less the work of the devil, but it usually has a positive effect. I take as the best current example the initiative which the European Commission is pushing, in the face of resistance from some member states, to ensure minimum procedural safeguards for suspects and defendants around the EU. At present, if you are arrested in X or Y member state (no names), your rights and treatment will be very different from what you can expect in the UK. Some newspapers, which make their names decrying the work of the EU, also decry the treatment of our boys when they are banged up abroad following a football match or whatever.

Well, the EU is working towards common rights. The right to an interpreter and translator has already gone through; the right to a letter of your rights is going through; and the right to a lawyer from the first moment has just been launched. There are more to follow. What will happen to this if the EU goes down the tubes? Will the world be a better place for those who become entangled in the criminal law abroad?

The inter-mingling of European people, which has been speeded up by the EU, will not stop just because the EU implodes. I take as a small example the number of Polish people in the UK. The EU has been trying to resolve complicated issues of marriage, divorce, and succession across its borders. Will those who live in other member states have to go back to the bad old days of conflicting and complicated national provisions?

We do not need to be told again that information technology has rendered the world borderless. The EU is struggling to join up national systems to help lawyers conduct transactions across borders in other member states, for instance through the interconnection of official registers or by the introduction of e-filing. These efforts will presumably stop, too.

There is a host of other single market provisions covering free movement of people, goods and services – holiday houses in France, standard food labelling, passport-free travel – which will affect relations with our most important markets and nearest neighbours.

The EU has considerable soft power. The answers which we find to problems between common law and civil law systems can be used by others when they are confronted by similar questions. I take as just one example the solutions which will be used to conduct legal e-transactions across border, bearing in mind the different cultural and legal expectations of the member states. This will become an inviting template for others to use beyond Europe.

That is why I say that we will have in due course to re-invent the EU. We have become used to European borderlessness and free movement. Technology demands that we move in that direction anyway. And the growth of China and the other BRIC countries to join America as world leaders leaves the UK as a rather unimportant country. It is inconceivable that each of the EU countries would be content to sink back into their national borders without continuing with a radical co-operation among themselves – maybe this time around without a single currency.

Jonathan Goldsmith is secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, which represents about one million European lawyers through its member bars and law societies.

He blogs weekly for the Gazette on European affairs.