TOO MANY LAWYERS?

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johnny blaze

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I was just reading some figures about lawyers in different countries. I cannot remember all the countries that were listed. Japan for one had a ratio of 1 lawyer for every 4,000 people.
The US has a ratio of 1 lawyer for every 276 people, the highest in the world.
No wonder the bad guys have all the rights when it comes to shootings and gun related crimes.
It really makes a person think what would happen if they were in a self defense situation and had to act.
 
Lawyers have to have clients to survive. No lawyer ever brings a case on his or her own. They ALWAYS have a client. So, maybe we have so many lawyers because we have so many people willing to sue. Blaming lawyers for lawsuits is like blaming guns for violence. The lawyer is just the tool.
 
It's true, but here's some perspective:

1. It's supply and demand at work.

2. You don't have to pass Anatomy and Physiology to be a lawyer, like you do to be a medical doctor.

3. There is no longer any sense of community in most places, so every little problem turns into a lawsuit.

4. The jury box is one of the few forms of democracy left to us.

5. As far as the stats are concerned, part of the explanation is that many people doing legal work in Japan are not admitted to the bar. They have law degrees, but work in house for large corporations doing work that members of the bar would do here. Basically no one bothers to take the bar in Japan unless they want to be a trial lawyer, which is a small minority of people doing legal work. So if you count members of the bar and compare them, it looks as if they have almost no lawyers. That said, see # 3. Japan has some sense of community left.
 
This week's The Economist has an article about how Japanese police coerce confessions out of everyone. They even convicted two men of the same rape based on their "confessions."

If you ever get into the clutches of the Japanese criminal justice system, you'll know where those former Kempeitai agents found new employment.

If, no, WHEN you need a lawyer, you'll be really glad you are in America.
 
Fer Cryin' Out Loud

Saying 'all lawyers are...." is just as narrow-minded as saying "All Gun Owners are....". Attorneys - like any other profession - have good members and bad members. Let's take the high road here.
 
Lawyers have to have clients to survive. No lawyer ever brings a case on his or her own. They ALWAYS have a client. So, maybe we have so many lawyers because we have so many people willing to sue. Blaming lawyers for lawsuits is like blaming guns for violence. The lawyer is just the tool.
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Now that I have the cheap and easy rimshot out of my system, and have had time to think about it, I have to express my utter distaste for this kind of thinking.

You see, a lawyer isn't a thing, like a gun or a knife or an automobile. A lawyer is a human being, with a conscience, a brain, and (sometimes, at least!) a heart.

Just because someone waves money underneath his nose, doesn't mean he has to take that money. He still has as much choice as you do about the types of things he is and is not willing to do in order to earn a buck.

To say otherwise is to reduce an intelligent, thinking human being below the status of an animal. That's even more insulting than saying all lawyers are deliberately evil.

(Oh, and for the record: I don't think lawyers are evil. I think they're human beings, with an innate sense of right and wrong and the usual human predilection for choosing the wrong thing just like the rest of us. I also think there are too many stupid laws. It is the lawyers' faults that there are too many stupid laws. They are to blame ... just as much as you and I are.)

pax
 
You don't have to pass Anatomy and Physiology to be a lawyer, like you do to be a medical doctor.
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Are you implying that lawyers are not as smart as doctors, or that lawyers are generally stupid? Law school is not easy, and neither is the bar exam.

I suppose you think CPAs are just guys with Turbo Tax and a fancy office?
 
I think America DOES have too many lawyers and too many laws.

I think the problem in a way goes hand in hand with the fact that most legislators - or at any rate a significant number of them - are attorneys.

Attorneys, by definition, are Officers of the Court.

Our System of goverrnment is based on the premise of separation of powers.

Given that many Founding Fathers were attorneys and many of them were legislators, very few if any were career politicians.

Today the attorneys who is a legislators and a career politician is all too common.

I think attorneys should not be permitted to run for elected office unless that office is a judgeship, as it constitutes a conflict of interest. As legislators and attorneys simultaneously, they are in a position to enact more and more complicated legislation to generate more lawsuits and profit their profession.

By the way, Japan has far fewer attorneys than the U.S. and functions perfectly well. In the U.S. the State with the highest per capita number of attorneys is New Jersey which explains a lot about why New Jersey is the way it is.
 
You have to go a little further than just counting lawyers. We have patent lawyers they do not. There may be other areas where they do not have but we do. Too answer the basic question, we have way too many lawyers out there. Maybe make the bar a little tougher like spending a year or two as a corrections officer......
 
No one likes lawyers until they need one. :neener:

Seriously lawyers are demonized and most people think of ambulance chasers and really wealthy people out to squeeze money out of everyone else. The reality is most lawyers aren't ambulance chasers and most aren't wealthy.

Lets look at the median salary of lawyers 9 months after graduation. The average was 55k, private practice 80k, business law 60k, judicial clerk and government 44.7k, and academics made 40k. People with a 4 year computer science degree averaged offers of 50.8k a year right out of school, accountants 52.7k, practically all engineers will be outearning the lawyer, pharmacists will be making 84.9k. The lawyer thing is popular but as stale as "take my wife...please."
 
Nobody likes lawyers until they need one... and when do they need one? When the other guy has a lawyer.

One thing I can say in defense about choosing law as a profession is that it ain't going to be outsourced, and you don't have to worry about illegal immigrants taking your job. That's a nice thing.
 
Lawyers in Politics

I hereby move that no person shall be permitted to hold public office who has ever practiced law professionally.

I don't have a problem with members of congress hiring lawyers as needed to ensure the proper wording of a proposed law, but the lawyers themselves may not hold office, as this is a conflict of interest.

Further, as with CPAs and other professionals, lawyers shall be accountable for the propriety of their work. Thus any lawyer found to have participated in drafting a law which violates the constitution shall be deemed complicit in a felony, and shall be disbarred.

Think of it this way: a lawyer is essentially a vicar of legislation; and, while we don't have a problem with a vicar solemnizing a marriage, we generally frown on the vicar sleeping with the bride.
 
By the way, Japan has far fewer attorneys than the U.S. and functions perfectly well.
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I take it you have been there....obviously not, their justice system is well, not really a justice system.


You are right, societies problems are caused by too many lawyers.

No wait, it is because teachers don't teach....

No wait, it is because we don't raise our children properly...

No wait, it is because of welfare.....

No, no wait...

It is easy to blame ( ), insert whatever you would like to insert, for our social and moral degeneration, but the truth of the matter is that we (all of us collectively), are to blame.

BTW the assignment of blame to someone else is one of the primary reasons we have so many plaintiff attorneys. If there was no one feeling that they are owed something, or that their injury was a result of their someone else's fault (this is rarely the case) then there would not be a demand for so many lawyers. Juries make the final decision, so again, in a frivolous law suite we (our peers), not the attorneys are to blame.

It is really easy to hate lawyers...until you need one.

All attorneys are evil, except of course your own.
 
Too many unfortunate comments to respond to. Like any other job, if there is a demand, someone will fill it. 4 years of college, 3 years of law school, then the bar exam. A lot of time and money before you make your first dollar.

Too many? Don't forget that many many lawyers do not practice law, but get counted in the total anyway. For me, I am a tax lawyer, I have never even been to any of the courts in my area - don't even know where they all are.

The tax code is overly complex .... in addition to schooling, I have spent 10 years practicing ... until it gets simplified or eliminated, there is a need for someone like me to help clients navigate it.

And before you say it, I have not been to any of those meetings where we lawyers get together and make the law complicated to ensure we will have a steady flow of paying clients.:banghead:

Said when folks who can recognize ignorant statements in some areas can't in others. What would the general response here be to “too many gun owners”?:confused:
 
The US has a ratio of 1 lawyer for every 276 people
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Where is that figure coming from and how are they defining "lawyer"?

a lawyer is essentially a vicar of legislation;
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What are you talking about? So if you know too much about the law, you should be forbidden from running for office? That makes a lot of sense.

Thus any lawyer found to have participated in drafting a law which violates the constitution shall be deemed complicit in a felony, and shall be disbarred.
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You don't understand what "unconstitutional" means. But be careful! If you learn too much, you might have to be barred from voting.

You people are revelling in ignorance.
 
Thus any lawyer found to have participated in drafting a law which violates the constitution shall be deemed complicit in a felony, and shall be disbarred.
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??????
 
An attorney is no different than a gun. What matters is who is standing behind him or it as the case may be. He only has power because someone gave it to him. Attorneys don't sue people, they represent people. Hold the person pulling the trigger responsible.

No doubt there are plenty of people in my profession that are dirty and corrupt. But probably no more than any other profession.
 
I think the problem in a way goes hand in hand with the fact that most legislators - or at any rate a significant number of them - are attorneys.
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Perhaps there is overlap in the type of interests that leads one to law school and one to politics. That is more likely than a conspiracy to ruin the world.
 
I agree that the legal system is insanely complex. The tax code, for example, should be rationalized. But the main reason our laws are so complex is because our nation has become so complex. And unlike Japan or China, this is a nation of laws. We can't settle business disputes with sake in a back room. There are complicated duties that lock us into a network of legal obligation.

And the plain fact is, the wealthier we become the more we need others to deal with all the wealth. Think of it this way. For grandpa buying a house in 1910, he could do a walkthrough himself and see the shape of the timbers. Closing was a matter of a handshake and a deed. Now there are complicated finance and security issues, appraisals, inspections and the potential for getting hosed at every step. The stakes are higher precisely because we have to rely on so many other people to get anything done, and because we have so much to lose at every step.

If you want to go back to the world of 1907, we wouldn't need many lawyers at all. But be prepared to haul your own water :D
 
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