We only have 70% of all the lawyers on the planet trying to earn a living here.
The US is in the middle of the pack for the number of legal service providers per capita. (For example, in Japan there are very few lawyers, but many people who are legally trained and provide legal services in companies. In other nations, notaries are legally educated and provide the kinds of services lawyers provide here).
Except for the ABA law school accreditation monopoly that makes law school needlessly expensive, and the state bar exam “hoop jumping” we have a relatively free market.
Anyone who disagrees can explain how we have “too many lawyers” and “lawyers are overpaid” at the same time.
Incidentally, this topic has been around cyclically for generations.
One of my previous jobs involved working with the Public Defender's Office as part of the CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) program. These PD’s were not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They were ill-suited to representing the best interests of the child in cases of abuse and neglect before the court.
Forget the social workers at Dept. of Children and Family Services (DCFS)...they were concerned about families and not about the children in those families. Dysfunctional parents really screwed up the heads of their kids, thus preparing the way for dysfunctional parents when these kids grew up and had families of their own.