This. I recently read remembrances from people living in post-Soviet countries after the USSR breakup. It was little like the fantasies most others are envisioning in responses here, and imagining from fiction.
They all talked about economic collapse, anyone who had savings, became destitute.
Muscle ruled, thugs obviously took whatever they wanted from those who could supply, starting with factories and businesses. Obviously thugs wouldn't harm those they needed to the point of those individuals not being able to provide.
However supply lines/travel were problematic. Someone spoke of a store that sold two things: salt, and vinegar.
Some posters are pointing out their wives have skills, completely forgetting that many wives might be taken into sexual slavery. Desirable women became commodities.
Which isn't to say there was complete lawlessness, but what would you do for protection from the gangs/law? They are younger, stronger, well-armed, more numerous, and don't respect intellectual debate. Their "tax" structure won't be logical, or necessarily sustaining.
I'm also amused at those imagining recovering information from libraries. Have you been to one recently? Many libraries won't cull books donated to their collections for fear of offense, but patrons don't check out resource books that many assume they'd find there, stuff that doesn't circulate gets culled. Older titles get culled all the time. Patrons check out DVDs. Particularly new releases. Shelf space has been yielding to computer workstations. There's a growing trend shifting from housing dead trees, to serving as community centers, particularly in more online services.
A lot of people have been suggesting they are capable of producing electricity from car alternators, as if electricity is valuable when there's a dearth of food. Not a single respondent remembering post-Soviet times mentioned electricity. A recurring theme was getting something from elsewhere as being hugely problematic--IE, transport.
On the idea of lawyers becoming irrelevant, who else will we turn to when we want to appeal to get our wife/daughter/son/sister back? Who else will we turn to point out that the amount of food left to us, won't be enough for us to survive and supply their wants? There will be need of objective arbiters who understand the "language" of the gangs/thugs/law, and can translate the needs of the common person to petition for "fair" judgment.
Society will continue to interact, move forward, and all the same existing needs will recur, including less base forms of entertainment. Here we are over a generation after the Soviet collapse, and society has rebounded. The people who came out ahead were the ones with connections, who saw opportunity and capitalized on it, exactly the same as the ones who come out ahead in any form of society.