Too Many Lawyers?

[HydrogenBond]

I am not exactly sure of the numbers, but I read that America has more lawyers per capita than any other country, with the numbers growing faster than ever. After thiningk about that, I thought to myself, does this mean that America is the most criminal culture on the earth? I hate to think like that, but why else would we need so many lawyers?

 

The second thought was connected to economics. If I put myself in the shoes of a economically minded group of lawyers, to increase the demand for lawyers we need to increase the complexity of laws since this will help increase the number of potential criminals and victims. For example, if the tax code is complicated enough some will be afraid they are getting screwed and others will be afraid to make mistakes. In both cases, more jobs for lawyers.

 

Another way is to create new classes of criminals that never existed before. How many jobs does one think the cigarette prohibition has created for lawyers. Here is a good one, allow tatoos, but make it illegal to show them in public. There would create thousands of new lawyer jobs.

 

Another angle is to increase the number of presumed victims. For example, if the weatherman says it will be nice out but it rains, one will go through emotional distress and deserved to be compensated. To extrapolate on this theme to many more scenarios, we need to condition culture to deny all responsiblity for their own actions.

 

We always have a supply of real criminals. We can create more jobs if we increase their turnaround in the system, so they can be on the street faster. Better training for lawyers can free more criminals faster so they can do it again and create jobs for other lawyers.

 

Are there other ways to create more jobs for lawyers?

[Zythryn]

Are there other ways to create more jobs for lawyers?

 

I think a very succesful way to do this is to raise a generation or two of people with the understanding that anything that happens to them is someone else's fault and that they should pay.

 

This would encourage people to seek out lawyers to bring suit against cities, states, other people, and businesses (often more than one of the above) for tripping on a sidewalk, spilling hot coffee on yourself and other such things:eek:

[InfiniteNow]

Are there other ways to create more jobs for lawyers?

 

Put society on the path toward a police state, whereby those persecuted are not always in the wrong. Lawyers would be needed more often then to convince society of people's innocence.

[C1ay]

It would be my guess that we have the most litigated society.

[HydrogenBond]

One thing that does not occur that would also increase the demand for lawyers is to make it common for lawyers to sue other lawyers. If a lawyers gets a known criminal off with a technicality and that criminal violates another person, that person can sue the lawyer. This never happens, because the legal commnuity sets the rules to assure they are exempt from legal suits. Lawyers suing lawyers is uncommon because it would mean money shifting between lawyers with very little net gain for the lawyers as a whole. It would be like two automobile manufacturers buying each others cars. Sales and demand would increase but nobody would make much profit.

[sebbysteiny]

Would I be putting a dampner on things if I said that there are more lawyers in America than anywhere else because America is the economic capital of the world and almost all big deals somewhere will have an American connection, and therefore an american lawyer? Thoughts so, so I won't say that. I'll just keep quiet.

 

God damned lawyers. Don't we hate them.

 

A talented engineer dies and goes to the gates of heaven. He asks St Paul if his name on the list. St Paul, however, had mucked the papers up and couldn't find him, so the engineer went to hell. On Satens guided tour of the place, the engineer noticed some problems with Hells design and got to work.

 

1 month later, Moses asked St Paul where the engineer was and quickly discovered the problem and told god. God went to the devil and said, 'erm, I'm sorry to bother you old chap, but there appears to have been some kind of mix up. You know that engineer chappie you got last month? Well, he was supposed to be with us'.

 

The devil goes, 'NO WAY am I giving him up. He's put in air conditioning, a sauna and even a swimming pool. He's staying'.

 

God goes 'I'm afraid that is against the rules of the game'.

 

'What are you going to do about it?'

 

God replies speedily, 'I know, I'll sue!!'.

 

The devil goes 'oh year!!! where are you going to find a lawyer?'

[HydrogenBond]

Where I am heading with this is that the increasing lawyer population can be correlated to economics and the laws of supply and demand. Lawyers are sort of a commodity that can assist in the creation of demand since lawyers and laws are like two peas in the same pod.

 

The question that is raised if, is a market driven legal system condusive to equal justice for all? If one thinks about it, a free market legal system sort of comes down to justice and injustice for a price. The average person and criminal does not have control over the scales of justice or injustice unless they pay a lawyer to tips the scales. If one puts enough money on either side of the scales, it can be made to tip any way one wants it too.

 

For example, two people with equivilent crimes can get two different outcomes from the criminal justice or injustice system, even though equal justice for all should lead to the very same result in equivilent cases. It often comes down to what one can afford to spend on a lawyer or lawyers. One may argue that although one may escape justice or injustice with a good lawyer, it may still cost you an equivilent opportunity cost. In one case ,the money goes to the collective justice system and in the other case it goes into the bank account of a lawyer. Lawyers are allowed to siphon money out of the criminal justice system. In an free market legal system this is what one would expect since the whole system is run by lawyers.

[sebbysteiny]

Aaah, this is turning into a serious discussion.

 

I see sense in your arguments. However, perhaps I can offer some new thoughts that you can accept or reject.

 

In an free market legal system this is what one would expect since the whole system is run by lawyers.

 

The same could be said of almost any profesion. In a free market accountancy profession, the whole system is run by accountants; in a free market building profession, the whole system is run by builders etc. There is no reason why lawyers are any worse than any other profession here.

 

The average person and criminal does not have control over the scales of justice or injustice unless they pay a lawyer to tips the scales. If one puts enough money on either side of the scales, it can be made to tip any way one wants it too.

 

Although there is some merit to this argument, it cannot be the whole truth either. A lawyer is, to put it simply, somebody who specialises in presenting an argument and making the other side look bad. However, if that other side is armed with the truth, the truth will probably win out even if only a half competant lawyer is running it for three reasons: one, by definition, you can't prove a lie (so every piece of evidence must have a fundamental flaw which can be exposed), two, you can prove a truth (finger printing, DNA, a picture of his hand on the gun pulling the trigger at time and place of shooting), and three, the story of a lying witness can be pulled apart much easier than the story of somebody telling the truth. Even the very best lawyer cannot win against the wealth of evidence.

 

In some cases, it might be best to save the proceeds of crime until your release where you can invest in moving country and starting again.

[Zythryn]

I agree that justice, to some extent, is for sale in the USA.

This is not true in all cases, but does appear to be the case in some (both criminal and civil).

If nothing else, more money allows lawyers to through more red tape 'frivilous mothions, appeals, etc'.

 

However, even if all lawyers had the same set rate of pay as all other lawyers, there would always be the argument that one lawyer happened to be better than the other.

 

To make the system as fair as possible, I think we need to make sure our populace is well versed in logic. This would allow them, more easily, see though faulty arguments.

[sebbysteiny]

To make the system as fair as possible, I think we need to make sure our populace is well versed in logic.

 

Are we talking about the very same populace where about 1 in two still believe that man made climate change is still a debatable opinion rather than unequivical scientific fact? Good luck.

[HydrogenBond]

The same could be said of almost any profesion. In a free market accountancy profession, the whole system is run by accountants; in a free market building profession, the whole system is run by builders etc. There is no reason why lawyers are any worse than any other profession here.

 

There is truth in this. The difference is that we all benefit by a free market system with respect to these professions. The competition and the laws of supply and demand help allocate scarce resources. There are also anti-trust laws built in to prevent monopolies. In the cases of lawyers, the resource being alocated is justice and the lawyers are given a monoply.

 

Justice is suppose to be part of the public domaine. It would be like having the miltary and police operate via free market forces. If one pays enough you are protected if not, too bad. If you pay a lot, the fire department will take 5min to respond, if not enough, maybe tomorrow. Everyone would be up at arms if this happened.

 

There is a way to allocate justice, so we can approximate equal justice for all. It is very simple. Just have a lawyer lottery. If one needs a lawyer, a big lotto machine spins and one picks out a ball. This allows the small guy to peridocially get the best protection and/or ability to excape justice and allows the big guy to periodically get the worse protection. It would be hard to cheat on taxes if one expects to get a dud lawyer here and there. While the homeless beggar may become wealthy if he picks well.

 

Back in the beginning a free market system of lawyers was progressive because it provided a way for the little guy to protect themselves from the govenment and the big guy. One could still buy judges, etc., but at least the little guy could fight back. It even protected the big guy from polititians. The system is no longer as corrupt as it once was, with the deck stacked, at the top of power. The playing field has become something else. The lawyers are increasing the demand for injustice.

[Zythryn]

Are we talking about the very same populace where about 1 in two still believe that man made climate change is still a debatable opinion rather than unequivical scientific fact? Good luck.

 

LOL, well I din't say it would be easy:eek2:

[sebbysteiny]

This argument is getting interesting now. Glad I joined it.

 

In my last post, I set you the challenge of finding something that is wrong with the legal profession that distinguishes the legal profession from all other professions, and I am glad to see that there have been two such arguments put forward.

 

The difference is that we all benefit by a free market system with respect to these professions. ... In the cases of lawyers, the resource being alocated is justice and the lawyers are given a monoply.

 

1) That lawyers have a monopoly which other professions do not. I'm not yet convinced on that one. There are hundreds of different law firms all competing with each other to get as many clients as they can. As far as free market goes, this is working quite well in the sense that there is no shortage of competition (and therefore no monopoly). However, the legal profession, as a profession, does have a monopoly on legal matters, but that is hardly surprising. The accountancy profession has a monopoly on accountancy matters and builders have a monopoly on building matters.

 

Nevertheless, it is true that the supply of good capable lawyers does not meet demand which is why such people by the laws of the free market can charge so much. But that is also similar with most professions: the supply of the very best does not meet demand so price goes up.

 

Justice is suppose to be part of the public domaine. It would be like having the miltary and police operate via free market forces.

 

2) This seems to me to be be a very strong arguement. Whist most professions provide civil services for people who want them, the legal system is a part of the runnings of the country (like the government) and therefore the resources that it supplies must be provided fairly. There are many parallels between this and health, which is also a 'rich you live, poor you die' system. However, I think the problem is that there is no easy method to distribute legal resouces 'fairly'.

 

Firstly, some companies will require much more legal expertise than the average person because every contract they sign will need a team of lawyers. Infact, 95% of legal work does not even involve a court.

 

Secondly, becoming a lawyer requires a lot of training. Therefore, unless one is prepared to pay a handsome sum, one cannot get the number of lawyers necessar to give everybody a perfect service.

 

I guess the best way is to treat the legal profession in a similar way as one treats health. Create a legal centre for each area and make lawyers spend compulsory time there (say 1 day every 2 weeks) incase people want to get cheap but good advice. However, there already is such a system. It's called pro bono. Although many lawyers do volenteer, I think part of the problem is getting poor people to know about the services that are offered.

 

A second solution is to use legal aid, but that normally leaves people who earn too much for legal aid but not enough to get any decent advice in trouble. Perhaps a formula should be used in which money given for legal aid is tied to earnings. However, taxation would have to go up to pay for it.

 

Thirdly, one could make privite legal insurance compuslory. Again this would come at a cost, but, if the insurance is priced correctly, most people should get access to good legal advice.

 

But the problem isn't an easy one.