"It's The Law"

[unixronin]

Some points to ponder about the practice of law in the United States:

• The United States has more lawyers than any other nation in history, more than any other nation in the world; according to some sources, more than all other nations in the world combined.
• There are about 40,000 law firms in the United States.  About 2,000 of them have more than ten lawyers.
• Coincidentally, about 40,000 new lawyers graduate and enter law practice in the United States every year.
• In 1973, about ten US corporations had legal departments with more than 100 lawyers.  By 1990, there were 250.  By 2000, there were over 500.  Some of those corporations now have over a thousand lawyers.
• There are 35% more lawyers in the United States than there are doctors.  It has been suggested that this is because there's more money in suing a doctor than in being one.

Comments

[fatcook.livejournal.com]

And 30 to 40 percent of those are underemployed. Which means they are looking for things to do; like lawsuits.
Did you know that the biggest growth industry in the law world is protecting clients from other lawyers?

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

I hate to intrude with reality, but according to the Labor Dept, the unemployment rate among lawyers in 2003 was 1.2%, sharply up from 0.8% in 2002 and 0.6% in 1999. I supposed it could be up 20x in the last few years, but I doubt it.

(I would believe that the rate of people who graduate from law school who aren't working as lawyers is 30-40%, however. This is a common path for people who want to get into activism, lobbying and politics.)

I would fully expect the number of lawyers employed by large companies to expand as the companies grow and the economy expands. When I was working on Albuquerque back in the early 90s, one of the big complaints we ran into trying to do business was a lack of lawyers around to do contracts and the like.

Similarly, with productivity rising massively in the last 50 years leading to economic growth that has far outstripped population growth, I'd expect there to be more lawyers than doctors.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I hate to intrude with reality, but according to the Labor Dept, the unemployment rate among lawyers in 2003 was 1.2%, sharply up from 0.8% in 2002 and 0.6% in 1999.

She said "underemployed", not "unemployed".

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

Ever seen Devil's Advocate (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0118971/)? Al Pacino has a nice speech about "why lawyers?" ...

[yndy.livejournal.com]

There are 35% more lawyers in the United States than there are doctors. It has been suggested that this is because there's more money in suing a doctor than in being one.

Huh... I'd attribute it to the fact that there are fewer cadavers in law school - and while many people pass out at the sight of blood - few faint at the sight of a pad of yellow legal paper...
:P

[house-pundit.livejournal.com]

When I worked for e-attorney, the bosses' understanding of the current state of affairs was that lawyers working in their field averaged about 20k a year just out of law school, that they were worked like dogs for that. Also, that the impression of lawyers making big money was, for most, a myth. It was a myth that drew a lot of bright young people into the field, but still a myth. The huge glut meant that by supply and demand, the money a young lawyer would get by salary or by hanging out his own shingle would be small.

People who go into law believe they're going to make a lot of money--or they're getting a law degree for some other reason than practice, like self-defense or ambitions in politics. Steve Stirling and Tom Kratman have law degrees, and I think David Drake is as well. Kratman came closest to using his when he taught "The Law of Land Warfare" at the Army War College for a few years.

Kratman, not practicing, went ahead and let his law license lapse so acquaintances would quit asking him for freebies.

A lot of lawyers are tax or contract attorneys, or do wills, incorporations, the rare pre-nup, or other paperwork. The US runs on a sea of paper. Or, more and more often, a sea of paper-like electrons.

This isn't really a bad thing. We tend to think of democracy and capitalism as cure-alls for foreign countries. Most of the countries it doesn't work in get sunk, hard, by cultural and functional tolerance of corruption. Our tendency to put everything in writing, and everything important in a contract, reduces corruption. Yes, you have to have honest judges, honest law enforcement, and starchy bankers to enforce those contracts; but, in a way, we're all wealthy (even our poor are wealthy by world standards of goods and services) because of our lawyers.

The ones that aren't trial lawyers are like the bacteria in your gut. You think they're a bit disgusting, and you take them for granted, but if something were to take them all away you'd be mightily uncomfortable until you got enough back to keep your processes running smoothly. ;-)

Julie

[smandal.livejournal.com]

What fraction of US professionals are lawyers? How does this fraction compare to other industrialized countries? What is the relationship between having lawyers and economic growth, and growth in human development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-being)?

I suspect that having lawyers is strongly correlated with economic growth among already-wealthy nations, and that the correlation to well-being is equivocal.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I suspect that it has something to do with the employment picture moving forward. Computer jobs are pretty much a thing of the past for those of us who cut our professional teeth on computers. Engineers are the current endangered professionals. That leaves lots of smart people looking for a way to make a living, going forward. Service professions are starting to look pretty good, in order to downsize those, you need to reduce the population. Outsourcing is also problematic for some kinds of services. Law school is also a far more reasonable option for a professional looking to start a second career, medical school and training can be ten years, or more.

The sad part of all these hopeful law students is that they are creating a glut in the market. Salaries for beginning lawyers are falling fast. It is starting to rival social workers for high education requirements and low pay. I have seriously considered law school, I think a DC is more reasonable at this point.

The glut is also affecting IP law. Too many Chemical engineers laid off from the oil companies are now IP lawyers.

We bemoan the number of lawyers and the abuses of the legal system by a fraction of unscrupulous firms, but most of the lawyers that I know personally are reasonable people. (Competitive as all hell, but reasonable.) {When Millberg, Weis got sanctioned, class action suits dropped by more than a third for over a year. One law firm.)