"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

[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.)