Posted on 02/07/2011 6:00:33 AM PST by A Strict Constructionist
As someone who teaches at a law school, and sees his students go out into the world, I am predisposed to like law. When I practiced law at a big firm here in Washington, D.C., I enjoyed it and I felt like we helped our clients with their problems, more often than not.
But a lot of people out there don't like lawyers, and think that the legal profession is harming the country. And I'm beginning to think that they might have a point.
The New York Times recently reported on the problems of an American entrepreneur in Greece. Though Greek political leaders desperately want new businesses to start up there - to help Greece's imploding economy and dreadful balance of trade - the barriers in terms of regulation and legal confusion are very high. The Times reports:
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/02/sunday-reflection-does-america-have-lawyer-problem-or-law-problem#ixzz1DHUjnBl2
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Anyone who thinks there are too many lawyers needs to explain why legal fees are so high. Those two things shouldn’t be able to coexist in a competitive free market.
Yes but they also were inventors, farmers, etc., i.e. they DID do productive work also.
I wouldn’t equate the ambulance chasers of today with the classical scholars and mental giants among the Founding Fathers.
WELL, I heard an argument one time that if attorneys were only allowed to ADVERTISE, their fees would come down.
The Free Market concept doesn’t apply to professional prevaricators.
Here is the promise from the Bar - You bring us ANY proposition, we will find support for that in the law.
No it’s not so much a nation of law as it is a nation where the smartest lawyer prevails.
“Anyone who thinks there are too many lawyers needs to explain why legal fees are so high. Those two things shouldn’t be able to coexist in a competitive free market.”
Training, they are the same as Docs in this area. They believe and are taught that they deserve the high rates from day one. Experience be damned.
We are now watching the affirmative action legal minds at work. They will be filling posts throughout our government and courts for a long time. It is a shame we cannot have the best and brightest enter professions.
“Further, an law that requires that a group of lawyers vote on it to determine its meaning is worthless by definition.”
I think you hit the jackpot. It’s only worthless to us it’s a winner for lawyers.
If the reasonable man, of common law fame, can’t understand it it shouldn’t be made into a law.
Instituting “loser pays”, like the rest of the industrialized world, would end the vast majority of totally useless and trivial lawsuits and would end the careers of vast numbers of legal leeches.
“I’m a lawyer. You’re 10 for 10.
Colonel, USAFR”
I am a recovering lawyer. He is indeed 10 for 10.
One of the great ironies I learned in criminal law is that the prosecution spends much of its time focusing on plea bargain possibilities, and that the defense bar spends much of its time persuading the defendant to plead guilty.
Pitiful.
“Instituting “loser pays”, like the rest of the industrialized world, would end the vast majority of totally useless and trivial lawsuits and would end the careers of vast numbers of legal leeches.”
Agreed. Centuries ago Spanish law had an interesting wrinkle. In a case where the defendant was acquitted, both the plaintiff AND the plaintiff’s advocate were subject to the fine or sentence they had urged for the the defendant.
“If the reasonable man, of common law fame, can’t understand it it shouldn’t be made into a law.”
This was pretty much the express objective of Napoleon with the Code Civile of 1804. He wanted a body of law that any reasonably competent citizen could comprehend and rely upon. He considered the civil code to be his most significant achievement, and indeed it has proven to be so.
Legal fees are high because lawyers have rigged the whole system. Try and operate in business and society without a lawyer. It’s like the old joke: If there is one attorney in town, they starve. If there are two in town, they are both rich. Connoisseurs of conflict that serve no real purpose but to enrich themselves
“I think its probably more profitable for a college to turn out attorneys than to turn out doctors, dentists, engineers and scientists - people who make life BETTER. Laboratories and equipment create a high overhead. All you need to turn out attorneys are law professors and libraries.”
You are correct. It is also an important choke point for indoctrination. The surplus of law schools, lawyers and litigation is due to both financial and political imperatives.
Under the Original Thirteenth Amendment lawyers that swear an oath through their local Bar to the International Bar Association, headquartered in the sovereign City of London, and are granted the title Esquire automatically lose their citizenship and are thus ineligible to hold office. Some people may dismiss the entire original 13th amendment controversy as wild "conspiracy theory" or the objection to the title Esquire as nitpicking but I think it would be a good idea to enforce the amendment anyway and kick all lawyers out of office. They've run this country into a ditch and to think they'll do anything to fix it, or anyone who's been in office the past fifty years for that matter, is insane.
Legal fees are high because lawyers have rigged the whole system. Try and operate in business and society without a lawyer.
Please specify how the system is “rigged” and how you would unrig it?
Training, they are the same as Docs in this area. They believe and are taught that they deserve the high rates from day one. Experience be damned.
If the reasonable man, of common law fame, can’t understand it it shouldn’t be made into a law.
Why lawyers can be a problem.
2 people have an issue over some property damage (mailbox) a a value of @ $40. Because they can not agree they go to lawyers. Because the lawyers each defend their clients position to the nth degree of the law, the case progresses from local Courts to County Courts to State Courts. In the end the $40 claim is settled with a toal cost to EACH PARTICIPANT in excess of $11,000 in lawyers fees court paper filings etc etc.
The winner of the case then sues the losers for their share of the fees thus strating the process all over again. The lawyers get rich the citizens get screwed............
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