‘Let’s kill all the lawyers’ was a line spoken by Dick the butcher (how appropriate!) in Shakespeare’s play, Henry the Sixth, part 2, act 4, scene 2. Dick’s Utopian idea to kill all of England’s lawyers is his addition to the promises of the traitorous Jack Cade, who envisions a quasi-communistic social revolution with himself installed as autocrat. Why would Cade want this revolution? Cade alleges that all lawyers do is shuffle parchments back and forth in a systematic attempt to ruin the common people. His demagoguery is simply a calculated appeal to simple folks’ longing to be left alone. Holy bat crap, Robin, does any of this sound familiar?
I have three close, personal friends who are all lawyers. Each one is a very great guy and fun to be with. But you know what my real problem is with lawyers? Well….here it is….there are just too damn many of them!
This is just not a personal opinion, but an opinion that can be verified with statistics. Do you know how many people graduate from law school in the United States each year? Well, that number would be approximately 50,000. Do you know how many lawyers the United States needs each year? Well, that number would be about 25,000. Doing simple division from Mrs. Meyers’ third grade class tells me that 50% of graduating lawyers do not end up in the legal profession. What other college degree would do this? Doctors? Teachers? Nurses? Accountants? Engineers? Without doing the research, I am confident that the vast majority of people with those degrees will find employment in their chosen profession. Over 70% of all lawyers in the world are in the US even though we account for only %5 of the world population! That equates to one lawyer for every 300 people in America!
As parents of future college students, you may want to evaluate the profession that your future college bound student is pursuing. This is especially true if they are thinking of a legal profession. There is more bad news! These are the words of the managing director of Daimler Benz: “In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.” He goes on to say many other predictions for the future, but you get the gist of his message.
Here is my second problem with lawyers. What do they actually do? Well, some time ago I attended a sales convention that was geared toward construction general contractors. I forgot who the guest speaker was, but we had many good ones. Fran Tarkington, Joe Theismann, and Brian Billick (All football players and coaches.) were all speakers. I digress. The speaker at this particular convention pointed out that general contractors ‘created wealth.’ By constructing buildings, this allowed companies to expand, thereby causing them to purchase more equipment and material and requiring them to hire more employees. This stimulates the economy! Hip-hip-hooray! What do most lawyers do? Well, they bring lawsuits and handle divorce proceedings. Yes, I know this is a simplification, but indulge me by following my reasoning. Our guest speaker at this convention went on to say that, “attorneys do not create wealth, attorneys redistribute wealth.” If you have ever been a party in either a lawsuit or a divorce, you will recognize the brilliance of this statement. They take money from one party, and give it to another. All of this after a healthy legal fee has been collected.
There is a third reason why I don’t like lawyers. I think some lawyers are destroying our country…piece by piece.
Do you think the cost of health care is too high? Why is that? Well, one reason is because we have become a litigious society because of all those lawyers. Some medical specialties can have medical malpractice insurance costs exceeding $200,000 per year per doctor depending on their medical specialty and location. Some states have placed caps on the size of a medical malpractice claim. George ‘Dubya’ Bush tried to establish medical malpractice limits throughout the US during his first term. It was defeated by a congress that was full of……. quess what? Lawyers! But the lawyers are not done. How many times have you seen that TV ad that says; “If you have used drug XYZ anytime in the last 250 years and suffer from or experience any of the following 539 symptoms, you may be entitled to a settlement!” Call the following number: 1-800-WESUE4U. Who do you think answers that phone number? The FDA? Disease Control? Your local doctor? NO. You are calling a law firm and they are bringing suit against a drug company. The drug companies protect themselves with very expensive product liability insurance which again increases the cost of drugs and health care.
Remember, only 50% of all law school graduates find employment in the legal profession. Where do the unlucky 50% go? I know some that are excellent real estate brokers and insurance agents and I am sure that they end up in other interesting fields. But unfortunately, many of these lawyers end up pursuing a political career, and that is where they can do the most damage. Do you know where you can find a whole slew of lawyers? Washington, D.C! One out of every twelve residents in Washington is a lawyer! Holy double bat crap, Robin! Washington accounts for only 1/5 of one percent of the US population, but has one of every 25 lawyers in America! Luckily for us, there is a decreasing trend in the number of lawyers in congress. Today that number is slightly less than 40%, compared to 80% in the late 1800’s.
But do you really want to know where you can find the most lawyers, those people that are masters at redistributing wealth? In the Democratic Party, which in one article is referred to as the ‘Lawyer’s Party.’ Need proof? Barack and Michelle Obama are both lawyers. Bill and Hillary Clinton are both lawyers. John and Elizabeth Edwards are both lawyers. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school, although Al Gore did not graduate. Every vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are both lawyers. The Republican Party is significantly different. Both Bush presidents and vice president Cheney were businessmen. Newt Gingich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. Paul Ryan has degrees in economics and political science. Former House Minority Leader John Boehner was a plastic manufacturer. Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon. And of course, our current POTUS is a businessman. Do you remember the last Republican president that was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, over 40 years ago. Oh, the Republicans have let a couple of lawyers sneak into the party, most notably Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers.
Why do I think lawyers are destroying America piece by piece? In the words by author Bruce Walker: “Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent and lawyers always parse language to favor their side. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts , and from lawyers. Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked.”
He summarizes by saying: ‘Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.”
I could not have said it better, so I did not try.
Some of my liberal readers may take exception with my statement calling the Democratic Party the ‘Lawyers Party.’ It should be easier for you to understand when you know that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association go to the Democrat Party. Then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high.
So in the broadest sense of the word, “I really hate most lawyers!’ (Except Duane, Don and Jim.)