Big Law: A Waste of Talented Minds?

Blaze991 · May 31, 2007, 9:39pm

There are millions of students in American universities today, but only the best of these students excel in college and score in the 97%+ percentile on the LSAT. These bright young minds often enroll at a T14 Law school. Racked with debt, recruited by Big Law firms, and tempted with high salaries, they end up, after finishing their elite educations, at a Big law firm working under demanding conditions. They work hard and it takes a mental and physical toll on them.

Intelligent men seek transcendence in life. They look for some ultimate purpose, some end of their day-to-day actions. How does a lawyer in Big Law find such a purpose? Do not lawyers ever get depressed when they realize, after becoming elitely educated and some of the most civilized citizens we have, that their work is not necessarily noble? (a bright doctor, on the other hand, can take solace in the fact that he is directly helping people)

I want to attend a T14 Law school and be a lawyer, but I am afraid that, when and if I get there, I will become depressed because I have done all of this to be nothing more than a slave to corporate America.

mchllhcm · May 31, 2007, 10:06pm

Interesting post. I've thought about this a lot and I've come to a resolution. My goals for a career after law school were to work for a non-profit. Like you, I've had some reservations about being able to work for a non-profit with that much debt. However, interning at these non-profits has given me some insight that have made these decisions much easier. At the non-profit I intern at, staff often have to wear many different hats and have a lot of responsibility for relatively low salaries. This non-profit relies heavily on volunteers and interns so we are treated better than some of the entry-level staff. You probably hear a lot about young lawyer burnout, but if you can imagine there is also a lot of non-profit burnout as well. As a legal advocate, I get to do a lot, but I can see how years of this work would be quite dull because it isn't much of a challenge. I do the same thing as a staff member. It's usually immigration, divorce, visa, and domestic violence work, which is fascinating for me because I am still learning. After all of this, I've learned that a career for me would need to be challenging and interesting. Although I would prefer it to be "noble work", I can live with my job if it is challenging and intellectually stimulating. Also, because of how I've seen staff treated by non-profits, I've decided that once I retire I will volunteer with non-profits, which is always what I've wanted to do. So, to recap: I will get my challenging job and eventually give back and do something I enjoy! :)

dcfca · May 31, 2007, 11:45pm

this has to be the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

if you're a lawyer for 'corporate america' you can easily contribute or help start some kind of charity and do a lot of good.

tons of these corporate america 'slaves' contribute the capital that funds the cancer research, the AIDS research, and so on that these doctors use to help people.

cartera45 · May 31, 2007, 11:54pm

Well "biglaw" isn't going to sneak up behind you, kidnap you and force you to work for them. The nice thing about going to a top law school and doing well is that you can work anywhere you want. You can be a public defender and do the "biglaw' thing after a couple of years if you want. You can go to the Department of Justice. You can go to a small boutique appellate practice, or you can go to a high profile plaintiff firm and go after big business. Not everyone looks for "transcendence in life" at work. "Biglaw" is a job like any other job.

sallyawp · June 1, 2007, 8:52am

[quote]
How does a lawyer in Big Law find such a purpose? Do not lawyers ever get depressed when they realize, after becoming elitely educated and some of the most civilized citizens we have, that their work is not necessarily noble? (a bright doctor, on the other hand, can take solace in the fact that he is directly helping people)

I want to attend a T14 Law school and be a lawyer, but I am afraid that, when and if I get there, I will become depressed because I have done all of this to be nothing more than a slave to corporate America.

[/quote]

Just my two cents . . .

I promise you that many lawyers in BigLaw derive a lot of satisfaction out of their jobs. They love the constant challenge, the rush of closing a big deal or the act of negotiating a deal, the feeling of getting their point across in the courtroom, the satisfaction that comes from working really hard and achieving exactly the ends that they or their client desire. One of the things that I have enjoyed most about working in BigLaw is that BigLaw generally charges clients too much money for clients to bring us their routine, day-to-day matters. Almost everything we work on is cutting edge -- where we are creating the standard. That is exciting to a lot of folks in BigLaw. Now, can the hours suck? Sure, but I have a difficult time imagining those cutting edge deals actually getting done by someone who works only 9-5.

Sometimes a job is just a job . . . a means to an end. There are folks who work in BigLaw simply for the handsome paycheck it brings, so that they can afford a wonderful lifestyle, a nice home, great schools for their kids, vacations anywhere they want to go, a nice nest egg for retirement (because no one I know is counting on Social Security to be there years from now) and the luxury of being able to do whatever they want to do -- including staying involved in organizations that serve humanity in some fashion or giving generously to the charities that matter most to them. Sure, not everyone is charitable or caring about anyone but themselves, but plenty of people are. I know attorneys in BigLaw who are volunteer mayors of their home towns, volunteer firemen, organizers of benefits for various charities, hosts to exchange students, volunteer ESL teachers, teachers to those seeking citizenship . . . you get the picture. It's a choice that anyone can make -- including someone who works in BigLaw. BigLaw also provides many opportunities to do pro bono work, which can take any number of forms. BigLaw also encourages associates to donate money every year to Legal Aid, for example, and organizes internal campaigns to get the checks written. (Let's be honest, while Legal Aid, and organizations like it, are necessary and important, without donations they can do little or nothing).

So why does someone's work have to be noble when perhaps their lives indeed are? Is it not acceptable for someone to work as a corporate slave, to use your example OP, but then to dedicate their free time and their money to worthy causes?

What about jobs that don't provide as direct a service to humanity as doctors may do? What about doctors who are in it for the money, and who are orthopaedists to sports stars or plastic surgeons to the Hollywood elite? Is it not noble to build roads, construct homes, work on a production line in a factory, bake bread or trim trees? Leave me some slack here -- but is keeping our economy moving, redressing wrongs that have been done (economic rather than penal wrongs) and ensuring corporate compliance and protection of investors not a worthwhile pursuit in its own way?

If you don't want to be a "slave" to corporate America, fortunately for you, this is the land of opportunity! Take a job working for Legal Aid or whatever community service or not-for-profit organization suits your fancy. Just know, though, that even those jobs are not be the great utopian ideal you may believe them to be. Yes, you may get to serve others in some direct way, but, for example, there are often funding difficulties that result in layoffs, service cuts and few resources (my old law firm used to provide notepads and pens to one of the legal services organizations we worked with on pro bono projects simply because they had so few supplies). There is also a lot of pressure in many of these organizations to basically be a fundraiser, which can take an extraordinary amount of time. The grass is not always greener.

Sorry that this rambled about a bit -- I've been working some horrific hours at work this week and I am tired (still happy to be a lawyer, though).

lskinner · June 1, 2007, 1:03pm

[quote]
a bright doctor, on the other hand, can take solace in the fact that he is directly helping people)

[/quote]

What if the bright doctor is put to work scrubbing bedpans for his first year out of medical school? What if he has to wait 8 years before he can see a patient alone; sign a prescription; make a diagnosis; or perform a procedure? Will the fact that he is helping people give him much solace? Perhaps.

As much as I disdain BIG(f?)LAW, I believe that there is a lot of social value in having lawyers and law firms. If you don't believe me, look at parts of the world that don't have law firms. They tend to be quite poor and disputes tend to be settled with AK-47's.

The waste in BIG(f?)LAW is that there is a tendency to micromanage and underutilize a lot of attorneys.

JMHO.

Greybeard · June 1, 2007, 3:26pm

I don't work for Big Law; I'm in-house, and work for a single corporation.

I'm hardly a slave. I participated in an arms-length negotiation when I took this job. When a job ceases to meet my needs, I find one that does. I have a set of skills that are highly valued in the market place, and highly portable, and my employers treat me accordingly.

I also like working. It's one of the best methods there is to achieve what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow," that state in which one's faculties are neither underutilized nor overtaxed.

The corporation that employs me is doing bleeding edge work improving the materials and processes used to create semiconductors. If we're going to solve the central problem facing our generation, the problem of using our resources in an efficient enough way that we stop cooking the planet, we need improved technologies. Sure, I'm not helping people in the direct manner of some guy with a stethescope in one hand and a tongue depressor in the other. But I majored in history in college; it's my nature to take the long view of things. Guttenberg changed the world much more dramatically than Paracelsus did. I'm no inventor. But I'm part of the capitalist infrastructure that provides an environment where the inventors can work and thrive.

sakky · June 1, 2007, 3:45pm

[quote]
As much as I disdain BIG(f?)LAW, I believe that there is a lot of social value in having lawyers and law firms. If you don't believe me, look at parts of the world that don't have law firms.

[/quote]

Well, to be fair, I don't think anybody is proposing to eliminate lawyers or law firms entirely. However, there are plenty of highly developed and wealthy nations that don't have the proliferation of lawyers that the US does. I believe, even in comparison to all of the developed nations, the US has one of the highest percentages of lawyers of any of them. I have heard the (possibly apocryphal) saying that in the US, there are more students in law school than there are practicing lawyers. Other rich nations, i.e. those in Western Europe, have clamped down on the proliferation of the use of the legal process and the drawn-out technical processes involved in its use, yet I think there is little dispute that those are quite comfortable countries to live in, with arguably * more * consumer protections than exist in the US.

Consider what Warren Burger said when he compared the judicial systems of the US vs. Scandanavia:

"I assume that no one will take issue with me when I say that these North European countries are as enlightened as the United States in the value they place on the individual and on human dignity. [Those countries] do not consider it necessary to use a device like our Fifth Amendment, under which an accused person may not be required to testify. They go swiftly, efficiently and directly to the question of whether the accused is guilty. No nation on earth goes to such lengths or takes such pains to provide safeguards as we do, once an accused person is called before the bar of justice and until his case is complete"

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_E._Burger#National_prominence%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_E._Burger#National_prominence</a>

And of course Shakespeare once wrote that in, as a first step towards creating a utopia, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"

[quote]
Intelligent men seek transcendence in life. They look for some ultimate purpose, some end of their day-to-day actions. How does a lawyer in Big Law find such a purpose? Do not lawyers ever get depressed when they realize, after becoming elitely educated and some of the most civilized citizens we have, that their work is not necessarily noble? (a bright doctor, on the other hand, can take solace in the fact that he is directly helping people)

[/quote]

Now, to this, my response is the same as what others here have said. If you don't want to be corporate drone, don't do it. Nobody has a gun to your head. Many of the top law schools have debt forgiveness programs that allow you to take low-paying NGO or government work.

And besides, if you think lawyers have it bad, think about what happens to the PhD students. I am quite convinced that some of the most intelligent people on Earth are guys getting PhD's in mathematics, physics, engineering, and other highly technical programs at the top schools, with the dream of deducing the secrets of the universe. Yet the fact is, even coming out of a top program, a lot of them will never get a tenure-track professor job, and even if they do, plenty of them won't actually get tenure. Hence, a lot of them will eventually end up in private industry doing corporate drone work (i.e working for hedge funds or investment banks has become quite popular for those with technical Phd's from top schools). Is that really any different?

lskinner · June 1, 2007, 3:48pm

[quote]
Ironically, the rallying cry of the lawyer bashers has become Shakespeare's quote from Henry VI: "THE FIRST THING WE DO, LET'S KILL ALL THE LAWYERS."

Those who use this phrase pejoratively against lawyers are as miserably misguided about their Shakespeare as they are about the judicial system which they disdain so freely.

Even a cursory reading of the context in which the lawyer killing statement is made in King Henry VI, Part II, (Act IV), Scene 2, reveals that Shakespeare was paying great and deserved homage to our venerable profession as the front line defenders of democracy.

The accolade is spoken by Dick the Butcher, a follower of anarchist Jack Cade, whom Shakespeare depicts as "the head of an army of rabble and a demagogue pandering to the ignorant," who sought to overthrow the government. Shakespeare's acknowledgment that the first thing any potential tyrant must do to eliminate freedom is to "kill all the lawyers" is, indeed, a classic and well-deserved compliment to our distinguished profession.

[/quote]

<a href="http://www.howardnations.com/shakespeare.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.howardnations.com/shakespeare.html</a>

lskinner · June 1, 2007, 3:54pm

[quote]
Well, to be fair, I don't think anybody is proposing to eliminate lawyers or law firms entirely.

[/quote]

Except for Shakespeare, apparently.

[quote]
However, there are plenty of highly developed and wealthy nations that don't have the proliferation of lawyers that the US does.

[/quote]

And perhaps there are plenty of highly developed and wealthy nations that don't have the proliferation of doctors that the US does.

I would also guess that a disproportionate share of the world's disputes and business transactions are brought to US courts and US law firms.

Are there too many doctors in the United States? Perhaps, but it doesn't change the fact that doctors serve an important social purpose. Ditto for lawyers.

bluedevilmike · June 1, 2007, 4:29pm

Cross-section data (i.e. international comparisons) are limited in that they make it difficult to control for background conditions -- in this case, it may be that the US has more lawyers and more protections because our citizenry might otherwise be less inclined to follow due process, where peaceful Icelanders might have more social norms towards harmony in the first place -- after all, you have to be a tightly knit community to survive the occasional polar bear raid or Valhallan invasion.

(Time series data present other limitations, of course, including the inability to detect the importance of factors that fluctuate very little.)

sakky · June 1, 2007, 4:54pm

[quote]
Ironically, the rallying cry of the lawyer bashers has become Shakespeare's quote from Henry VI: "THE FIRST THING WE DO, LET'S KILL ALL THE LAWYERS."

Those who use this phrase pejoratively against lawyers are as miserably misguided about their Shakespeare as they are about the judicial system which they disdain so freely.

Even a cursory reading of the context in which the lawyer killing statement is made in King Henry VI, Part II, (Act IV), Scene 2, reveals that Shakespeare was paying great and deserved homage to our venerable profession as the front line defenders of democracy.

The accolade is spoken by Dick the Butcher, a follower of anarchist Jack Cade, whom Shakespeare depicts as "the head of an army of rabble and a demagogue pandering to the ignorant," who sought to overthrow the government. Shakespeare's acknowledgment that the first thing any potential tyrant must do to eliminate freedom is to "kill all the lawyers" is, indeed, a classic and well-deserved compliment to our distinguished profession.

<a href="http://www.howardnations.com/shakespeare.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.howardnations.com/shakespeare.html</a>

[/quote]

Ha! Nice try. Actually, that phrase was not a "well-deserved" compliment of lawyers at all.

*The argument of this remark as in fact being favorable to lawyers is a marvel of sophistry, twisting of the meaning of words in unfamiliar source, disregard of the evident intent of the original author and ad hominem attack. Whoever first came up with this interpretation surely must have been a lawyer.

The line is actually uttered by a character "Dick The Butcher". While he's a killer as evil as his name implies, he often makes highly comedic and amusing statements. The wisecracking villain is not an invention of modern action movies, it dates back to Shakespeare and beyond.

The setup for the "kill the lawyers" statement is the ending portion of a comedic relief part of a scene in Henry VI, part 2. Dick and another henchman, Smith are members of the gang of Jack Cade, a pretender to the throne. The built-up is long portion where Cade make vain boasts, which are cut down by sarcastic replies from the others. For example:

JACK CADE.
Valiant I am.
SMITH [aside].
'A must needs; for beggary is valiant.

JACK CADE.
I am able to endure much.

DICK [aside].
No question of that; for I have seen him whipp'd three market-days together.

JACK CADE.
I fear neither sword nor fire.

SMITH [aside].
He need not fear the sword; for his coat is of proof.

DICK [aside].
But methinks he should stand in fear of fire, being burnt i' th'hand for stealing of sheep.

You can almost hear the rim-shot after everything Dick or Smith say here.
Cade proceeds to go more and more over the top, and begins to describe his absurd ideal world:

JACK CADE.
Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass: and when I am king,- as king I will be,-
ALL.
God save your majesty!

Appreciated and encouraged, he continues on in this vein:
JACK CADE.
I thank you, good people:- there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
And here is where Dick speaks the famous line.
DICK.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
The audience must have doubled over in laughter at this. Far from "eliminating those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution" or portraying lawyers as "guardians of independent thinking", it's offered as the best feature imagined of yet for utopia. It's hilarious. A very rough and simplistic modern translation would be "When I'm the King, there'll be two cars in every garage, and a chicken in every pot" "AND NO LAWYERS". It's a clearly lawyer-bashing joke. This is further supported by the dialogue just afterwards (which is actually quite funny even now, and must have been hilarious when the idiom was contemporary):
DICK.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
JACK CADE.
Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since.- How now! who's there?

He might just as well have been describing "shrink-wrap" software licensing agreements today in the last sentence. To understand what Cade is saying here, you have to know that documents of the time were likely parchment, and sealed with wax. So when he says "Some say the bees stings; but I say, 'tis the bee's wax". he's making an ironic comment somewhat akin to "Some men rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen". And the fact that he himself is an evil man only serves to heighten the irony, not discredit the sentiment - the more evil he is, the more the contrast is apparent.
It makes as much sense to conclude that since the "kill the lawyers" joke is expressed by villains, who later commit murderous deeds "there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score" is an approval of Libertarian thought, and a warning about Communists.

Now, just after this exchange, the scene changes tone. The gang commits the murder of the clerk of chatham. Here is the second level of Shakespeare's commentary on law and layers, where the murder is carried out according to scrupulous procedure, a parody of law:

JACK CADE.
I am sorry for't: the man is a proper man, of mine honour; unless I find him guilty, he shall not die.- Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee: what is thy name?
By this contrast Shakespeare thus makes in an alternating, connected, comedic and tragic manner the age-old point about the difference between law (and those who argue it) and justice. Cade makes up his "version" of law to his own ends, to the justification of his evil deeds, which is reminiscent of the context which commonly provokes "kill the lawyers" (where the phrase is in wry protest of actions thought to be the same in form, if not in degree). Far from being "out of context" the usage is more true to the original than most people know.
Now, compares this to the description given by the web page Lawyers are Our Friends!

Cade's friend Dick the Butcher, being only barely smarter than Cade, knew Cade's scheme could not succeed if the learned advisors to the real King actually investigated Cade's lineage. So, Dick the Butcher advised Cade that "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," hoping that this tactic would prevent Cade from being discovered as an imposter. At least in Shakespeare's time, lawyers were regarded as the protectors of truth.
That lawyer is being a protector of some sort, but it doesn't seem to be of the truth!
In fact, Shakespeare used lawyers as figures of derision on several occasions. In "Romeo and Juliet", Mercutio uses the line "O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;" In "King Lear", the fool defends a speech in riddles by comparing it to an "unfee'd lawyer":

EARL OF KENT.
This is nothing, fool.
FOOL.
Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer,- you gave me nothing for't.- Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?

There's a very long and lawyer-uncomplimentary passage in Hamlet. Note the similarity of the "parchment" joke to that seen in Henry VI, part 2.
HAMLET.
There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?
HORATIO.
Not a jot more, my lord.

HAMLET.
Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?

HORATIO.
Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET.
They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.- Whose grave's this, sirrah?

As long as there are lawyer, there will be "lawyer jokes". And lawyers will show how those jokes ring true by trying to explain how such lampooning really constitutes praise for their profession, thus by example justifying the jokes more than ever. *

<a href="http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html</a>

sakky · June 1, 2007, 5:17pm

[quote]
Except for Shakespeare, apparently.

[/quote]

Only as social satire. Don't take things so literally. For example, I am quite certain that Jonathan Swift never seriously wanted people to eat children, as he so advised in * A Modest Proposal *, or that Juvenal truly thought that death (or taking a boy-lover) was better than marriage, as he stated in * Satire VI *. That's what satire is - to take some of the inherent hypocrisies and contradictions of man and exaggerate them to an obviously satirical conclusion.

[quote]
I would also guess that a disproportionate share of the world's disputes and business transactions are brought to US courts and US law firms.

[/quote]

Of course! But that's a case of the tail wagging the dog. Heck, if I was a European with the possibility of winning millions in a US lawsuit (and with no cost to me, as the case would be taken on contingency), I'd certainly sue in a US court too. Why not? I have nothing to lose.

But that doesn't mean that the current size of the US legal system is an overall social benefit to society. Of course it benefits * some * people, namely the lawyers themselves and those particular clients who happen to win millions on lawsuits. It's an entirely different question as to whether society as a whole benefits. For example, one has to consider those incompetent employees who can't be fired because the employers are afraid of getting sued for discrimination. Or how about foiled robbers who try to sue their victims?

<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/10/national/main1699174.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/10/national/main1699174.shtml</a>
<a href="http://www.channel3000.com/news/9905807/detail.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.channel3000.com/news/9905807/detail.html</a>

[quote]
Are there too many doctors in the United States? Perhaps, but it doesn't change the fact that doctors serve an important social purpose. Ditto for lawyers.

[/quote]

I think what you mean to say is that * some * lawyers serve important social purposes. However, I think even the most cursory of observers has to conclude that some lawyers out there are really just ambulance chasers. Come on, you know it's true. And then of course that means that others then have to hire their own lawyers to defend against those ambulance chasers. Doesn't mean that those particular lawyers truly serve a social purpose, at least not under any mainstream definition of the phrase.

sakky · June 1, 2007, 5:36pm

[quote]
Cross-section data (i.e. international comparisons) are limited in that they make it difficult to control for background conditions -- in this case, it may be that the US has more lawyers and more protections because our citizenry might otherwise be less inclined to follow due process, where peaceful Icelanders might have more social norms towards harmony in the first place -- after all, you have to be a tightly knit community to survive the occasional polar bear raid or Valhallan invasion.

(Time series data present other limitations, of course, including the inability to detect the importance of factors that fluctuate very little.)

[/quote]

One way to deal with this difficulty is to look at those particular municipalities and counties that happen to host a disproportionate number of lawsuits, and then attempt to ascertain whether those particular regions suffer from a disproportionate number of other factors (i.e. social strife or disharmony).

For example, Jefferson County in Mississippi had become known as 'lawsuit mecca' because of the highy disproportionate number of lawsuits filed in that particular district. It became such a problem for pharmaceutical companies that many of them refused to send their latest drugs to the local pharmacies of that region because they were afraid of getting sued (although those said companies sold throughout the rest of the country, as the rest of the country was not so litigious).

<a href="http://www.mfep.org/MFEP/FastFactsbeforereforms.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.mfep.org/MFEP/FastFactsbeforereforms.html</a>

So one could examine whether Jefferson County really had disproportionate problems with social strife or other such social maladies that necessitated contingent legal practices, or whether lawyers were just taking advantage of a lax civil court system?

[quote]
Are there too many doctors in the United States? Perhaps, but it doesn't change the fact that doctors serve an important social purpose. Ditto for lawyers.

[/quote]

Funny that you would mention that. I'm sure bluedevilmike knows more about this, but I seem to recall reading instances of doctors of certain specialties choosing to relocate themselves away from malpractice-lawsuit-prone regions of the country.

To reiterate - I think we all agree that some lawyers do indeed serve important social functions. But I think even lawyers have to agree that some really do not. Heck, even John Edwards, arguably the most high-profile tort lawyer in the country right now, has proposed that lawyers who persistly file frivolous lawsuits be banned.

"We want to put more responsibility on the lawyers to require, before a case, malpractice, which the vice president just spoke about, have the case reviewed by independent experts to determine if the case is serious and meritorious before it can be filed; hold the lawyers responsible for that, certify that and hold the lawyer financially responsible if they don't do it; have a three-strikes-and-you're-out rule so that a lawyer who files three of these cases without meeting this requirement loses their right to file these cases"

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/05/debate.transcript3/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/05/debate.transcript3/index.html</a>

lskinner · June 1, 2007, 5:44pm

[quote]
The line is actually uttered by a character "Dick The Butcher". While he's a killer as evil as his name implies, he often makes highly comedic and amusing statements. The wisecracking villain is not an invention of modern action movies, it dates back to Shakespeare and beyond.

[/quote]

You might have a point if your earlier claim had been that Shakespeare had joked about killing all lawyers as a way of creating utopia. But that isn't what you said.

You said:

[quote]
And of course Shakespeare once wrote that in, as a first step towards creating a utopia, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"

[/quote]

Which you haven't supported at all.

UCLAri · June 1, 2007, 5:52pm

[quote]
Cross-section data (i.e. international comparisons) are limited in that they make it difficult to control for background conditions -- in this case, it may be that the US has more lawyers and more protections because our citizenry might otherwise be less inclined to follow due process, where peaceful Icelanders might have more social norms towards harmony in the first place -- after all, you have to be a tightly knit community to survive the occasional polar bear raid or Valhallan invasion.

[/quote]

I'll ignore the econometric questions for a second to bring up a very interesting case.

People often look at Japan and are amazed at how few lawsuits there are. They then usually rush to conclude that the Japanese are a harmonious lot and just like the social harmony. However, when getting to this conclusion, they ignore the fact that Japan, prior to the 1946 constitution, had nearly as many lawsuits per capita as other industrialized nations (think Meiji-era to about the 1930s). Then, for some reason, lawsuits drop in number.

It appears we have a omitted-variable bias, Dave.

Yep. Turns out that the reason for so few lawsuits is not Japanese harmony-think, but rather the legal structures in place that limit the number of lawsuits. Here's a brief list:

<ol>
<li>The Japanese bar exam is absurdly difficult to pass. Only 1% pass every year. This creates a bottleneck for the creation of new lawyers. Few lawyers means that their services are incredibly expensive.</li>
<li>There is no such thing as a class-action lawsuit in Japan.</li>
<li>In response to 1 and 2, mediation firms sprouted up. Claims are therefore settled out of court.</li>
</ol>

But if you don't know about these, you'd probably assume that it's just "how the Japanese are."

lskinner · June 1, 2007, 5:59pm

[quote]
One way to deal with this difficulty is to look at those particular municipalities and counties that happen to host a disproportionate number of lawsuits, and then attempt to ascertain whether those particular regions suffer from a disproportionate number of other factors (i.e. social strife or disharmony).

For example, Jefferson County in Mississippi had become known as 'lawsuit mecca' because of the highy disproportionate number of lawsuits filed in that particular district.

[/quote]

I'm not sure if the your criteria is so good for measuring the effect of lawyers or lawsuits. Also, how many lawsuits were filed last year in Jefferson County, Mississippi?

In any event, I would note that the County where my office is -- New York County -- has a huge number of lawsuits and other civil matters pending and is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation.

[quote]
but I seem to recall reading instances of doctors of certain specialties choosing to relocate themselves away from malpractice-lawsuit-prone regions of the country.

[/quote]

So what?

[quote]
But I think even lawyers have to agree that some really do not. Heck, even John Edwards, arguably the most high-profile tort lawyer in the country right now, has proposed that lawyers who persistly file frivolous lawsuits be banned.

[/quote]

So what?

[quote]
I think what you mean to say is that some lawyers serve important social purposes.

[/quote]

No, I meant to say that lawyers as a group serve an important social purpose.

[quote]
However, I think even the most cursory of observers has to conclude that some lawyers out there are really just ambulance chasers.

[/quote]

I'm not sure what you mean by "ambulance chaser," but I imagine you would agree that some doctors out there are really just butchers.

UCLAri · June 1, 2007, 6:02pm

[quote]
One way to deal with this difficulty is to look at those particular municipalities and counties that happen to host a disproportionate number of lawsuits, and then attempt to ascertain whether those particular regions suffer from a disproportionate number of other factors (i.e. social strife or disharmony).

[/quote]

This is very hard, because you have a lot of fixed effects to deal with. I don't know that there are any really good OLS tools that are going to allow you to deal with the almost certainly large alpha and mu that you're going to have in any cross-sectional data here. I guess an FE with some tight controls might work, but I'll be damned if I can wrap my head around a working model.

Greybeard · June 1, 2007, 9:11pm

Lawyers who persistently file frivolous lawsuits don't prosper. If they're taking the cases on a contingency basis, they're working for free (and often fronting the costs). Sometimes they're sued for malicious prosecution. They frequently get sanctioned by the courts; sometimes they're disbarred.

Using the term "ambulance chaser" for a plaintiffs' attorney is a stale joke, as hackneyed as calling an anaesthesiologist a "gas passer," or a surgeon a "saw bones."

I filed hundreds of suits on behalf of plaintiffs in the first dozen years I was practicing. Some were major cases, and some weren't. I rescued a widow and her child from undeserved poverty, and prompted a man who beat up a co-worker with a metal pipe to pull up stakes and leave the state. (Oklahoma's loss was California's gain.) Mostly, I figure I drove up the cost of insurance for bad drivers.

I also filed a few complaints based on the faulty perceptions of my clients, and a handful because somebody lied to me. I wasn't happy about that, but it happens.

I wouldn't assume, though, that frivolous lawsuits are all that common. People who have been sued are quick to claim that they've been sued frivolously, just as people who are accused of crimes often claim that they were framed. Neither phenomenon is unknown. They're just not as common as insurance companies, or prison inmates, or corporate executives would have you believe, in my experience.

lskinner · June 1, 2007, 11:16pm

[quote]
Lawyers who persistently file frivolous lawsuits don't prosper. If they're taking the cases on a contingency basis, they're working for free (and often fronting the costs). Sometimes they're sued for malicious prosecution. They frequently get sanctioned by the courts; sometimes they're disbarred.

[/quote]

Even putting aside the possibility of sanctions, I highly doubt it would work. In my own practice (employment litigation), I get perhaps 500 to 1000 calls per year from disgruntled former employees. Most of whom have no claim whatsoever against their former employers. If I could file suit on behalf of each one and extract a quick $3000 nuisance settlement, I'd be living in a mansion and driving a ferrari. I'm not and I don't.

Because the reality is that a lot of defendants fight really hard even when you have a good case. A lawyer who tried to build his or her practice on weak cases would quickly drown in cases, I suspect.

[quote]
I wouldn't assume, though, that frivolous lawsuits are all that common. People who have been sued are quick to claim that they've been sued frivolously, just as people who are accused of crimes often claim that they were framed. Neither phenomenon is unknown. They're just not as common as insurance companies, or prison inmates, or corporate executives would have you believe, in my experience.

[/quote]

I totally agree. It's just human nature. I've brought numerous cases that were close to slam-dunk liability and had the other side threaten me with sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Of course, when they ultimately settle, they frequently claim it's merely to avoid paying attorneys fees.

Ironically, what's far more common than frivolous lawsuits is frivolous defenses. E.g. a defendant makes up some BS defense to delay the case or get leverage in settlement discussions.

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