Patton: Too Many Lawyers, Too Little Wisdom

[Terri]

Doug Patton

In Henry VI, Shakespeare wrote, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Anyone with "esquire" behind his or her name will rightly tell you that the bard's quote, when taken in context, is in praise of lawyers. Personally, I prefer it taken out of context, as do most who quote it. Like all lawyer jokes, it makes the point that no one likes them and that there are far too many of them.

Paradoxically, it is the law that separates us from the uncivilized; yet lawyers in excessive numbers create a barrier to progress that threatens the very civilization we enjoy. This is especially true when wisdom is divorced from the practice of the law, as is so often the case in America today.

Take, for instance, the ridiculous ruling of the California Supreme Court, which mandated that the people of that state must accept a redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples.

Or the recent United States Supreme Court decision that invented a constitutional right to habeas corpus and all the rights associated with citizenship for hostile combatants taken prisoner on foreign battlefields. Our ancestors would think us mad, indeed.

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[Centurion LIV]

Ya'll ever notice that the words "lawyer" and "liar" sound a lot alike and often tend to share definitions?

[elmerck1]

King Soloman was a wise man, and through the years many people have had the privalige to get to know more about him. Many men in this country have been using that wisdom, such as many of our founding fathers, and many have been helping out the kids of this country who have many medical problems.The Masonic Hospitals treat many kids every year, and these are mostly ones whose parents can't afford all the operations.There should be more of this kind of things going on in this country, and some of the men in NASCAR are doing things very similar, by helping kids from poor homes, and ones who have diabilitating injuries and deformed limbs and other ailments, that would bankrupt most any family.Kyle Petty has one who he named for his SON who got killed doing what he loved, racing.Donate to these charities every chance you get, rather than some of the ones who do nothing to help people.

[Rivenburg]

The problem may be addressed in a straightforward manner that also addresses other cultural ills of our time, lack of enough doctors and engineers (with the attendant problems of over-priced health care and dwindling domestic manufacturing), by strictly controlling state and federal funding for school loans.
The military successfully uses a carrot & stick approach to enhance it's ability to attract bright youngsters to the needed skills in it's ranks. With a million lawyers in this country an easy case may be made to only fund the absolute best law students from here on and setting a target number for ALL the professions a civilized county needs with a sliding scale of attractive incentives. Start at the top with heavily subsidized educational funding (to the point of almost free for excelling students that maintain high grade point averages in the most desperately needed categories) on down including variations in interest rates and payback schedules. Doctors and engineers would be at the top in the under-funded category and of course a ceiling limiting the number of lawyers for at least several generations, time enough for their numbers to dwindle "naturally" ignoring Shakespeare's admonitions for a more...robust solution.

An aside here: I believe we could make serious effort to compete with the "emerging economies" in Asia in particular IF we funded the creation of schools for the education of a large, competent work force capable of setting up and programming industrial robots. The future of industrial production will NOT be in standing next to a hand operated mill, lathe, drill press or break-press. It will be in whipping along the next generation of slaves, robots. Hopefully without too many lawyers around to take their case to the supreme court.

[Rivenburg]

please delete this duplicate submission

[Nicholas]

There are lawyers, and then there are lawyers. Some are important to have around, like the kinds that will write a will or a contract for you, or research a patent, etc.

The kinds we have waaay too many of are, first of all, the personal injury lawyers - who are, as a group, responsible for the rising premiums on medical malpractice insurance. These rising rates are the reason behind many doctors retiring and/or moving to states where malpractice law is not so favorable to lawsuits.

Second is the liberal ones who get themselves appointed and/or elected to be judges, and eventually to be a Ginsburg or a Souter on SCOTUS. Screening these out will be trickier, as it will require seeing past their scores on exams in law school, to look at attitudes and value systems, and most of all, sincerity.

[3Sigma]

I hope Mr. Patton won’t mind me paraphrasing his title for this comment. I want to say: “Too Many Lawyers, Too Few Scientists and Engineers”.

The practice of law is an advocacy system, and when you advocate for a cause, you don’t have to be wise to succeed, you just have to be persuasive. Success in any technical field, however, requires an understanding of the laws of nature. Mankind’s laws, which are created by government politicians, have nothing to do with science.

Think about this: We have an aging infrastructure, a dwindling supply of energy resources, an inefficient and expensive healthcare system, and weaknesses in our national and homeland security. Could it be that possibly our priorities have been misplaced?