Lawyer Reform

Overview

Today our nation is awash with over 1,000,000 lawyers. Do we really need more? Than why are we as taxpayers subsidizing the training of so many additional ones in our state-supported law schools. It seems counterintuitive. Lawyers handling civil cases in other than a few areas create nothing. And yet they take a large portion of whatever it is that they redistribute. So adding new lawyers each year does nothing to improve our standard of living or to add value to our lives. Instead it reduces GDP by 2% annually and creates misery in the process.

Despite this oversupply of lawyers our nation’s law schools consistently graduate between 35,000 and 40,000 lawyers each year. And have annually for over twenty years. It is significant that a rather large number of these graduate from law schools which are subsidized by their respective state’s taxpayers.

Some will argue that prospective lawyers should have the right to subsidized training the same as engineers, accountants and artists. But there is a difference. Lawyers are Officers of the Court. And as such they are quazi-governmental employees who have an advantage in every economic transaction in which they are involved because they have the power of the state behind them. Individuals cannot lawfully represent other individuals. One cannot use his friend to represent him unless that friend is a lawyer. The state prevents it. As such lawyers should not be allowed to use training subsidized by taxpayers to build on this already substantial advantage.



Law schools in America: some subsidized some not


List of law schools in United States alphabetically:

http://www. lawsource.com/also/usa.cgi?usl

List of law schools by state:

http://www.allaboutcollege.com/gradschools/usa/law/law.htm



Why not instead subsidize the education of teachers who are in a position to contribute the most to our country

A significant improvement in dealing with the surplus of lawyers would be to redirect public money that is presently used to train lawyers towards training a more productive element of society such as teachers. Teachers instruct individuals who ultimately create things to improve our culture and our standard of living. Lawyers do neither of these. And doubtless ever will.