Down in Rusted Sky: Makes you wonder..., SueK makes the comment that we've got too many lawyers.
We're reaching the point in the US, I think, where the system has become a game with a lawyer's win is more important than society's stability. We have lawyers making laws that other lawyers then find ways to outwit - in fact, it seems as if those who make the laws deliberately make them with loopholes that they themselves can later use to their benefit.It does seem that way, doesn't it? When the US Tax Code itself is over 50,000 pages long it doesn't take much imagination to see that we've created a priesthood that we are completely dependent on when we need intercession with the law.
They're the only ones who understand it - and they're the ones who interpret it - and is it much wonder that they're heavy into politics?
There's an old song by Tom Paxton...
According to some stuff I found, the American Bar Association estimates there's an average of 22,000 lawyers per state. So - we've got over a million lawyers - 1,100,000 by my calculations. (We DO have 50 states, right? I'm not counting DC - that'll skew things considerably.)
Paxton Tom - One Million Lawyers LyricsONE MILLION LAWYERS
by Tom PaxtonHumankind has survived some disasters, I'm sure.
Like locusts and flash floods and flu.
There's never a moment when we've been secure
From the ills that the flesh is heir to.
If it isn't a war, it's some gruesome disease.
If it isn't disease, then it's war.
But there's worse still to come, and I'm asking you please
How the world's gonna take any more?
(CHORUS:)In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers,
One million lawyers, one million lawyers.
In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers.
How much can a poor nation stand?
The world shook with dread of Atilla the Hun
As he conquered with fire and steel,
And Genghis and Kubla and all of the Kahns
Ground a groaning world under the heel.
Disaster, disaster, so what else is new?
We've suffered the worst and then some.
So I'm sorry to tell you, my suffering friends,
Of the terrible scourge still to come.(CHORUS)
(BREAK:)
Oh, a suffering world cries for mercy
As far as the eye can see.
Lawyers around every bend in the road,
Laywers in every tree,
Lawyers in restaurants, lawyers in clubs,
Lawyers behind every door,
Behind windows and potted plants, shade trees and shrubs,
Lawyers on pogo sticks, lawyers in politics!(CHORUS)
In spring there's tornadoes and rampaging floods,
In summer it's heat stroke and draught.
There's Ivy League football to ruin the fall,
It's a terrible scourge, without doubt.
There are blizzards to batter the shivering plain.
There are dust storms that strike, but far worse
Is the threat of disaster to shrivel the brain,
It's the threat of implacable curse.In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers,
One million lawyers, one million lawyers.
In ten years we're gonna have one million lawyers.
How much can a poor nation stand?
How much can a poor nation stand
Maybe we've got too many. WAY too many.
J.
Comments (5)
Either one of two bills from Congress would solve the problem.
1. Limit compensation for legal representation in a civil suit to 25% of award or $250,000 which ever is less.
2. Stop the practice of having the court collect damage awards and paying the plaintiff's lawyer directly. Even though a lawyer is legally a officer of the court he is acting as his client's employee and should be paid by his client out of whatever funds he is awarded by the court. The lawyer's client should be the one responsible for paying for his own legal representation, its not the court's responsibility to be cutting his lawyer a check.
Requiring a filing payment of $20 to bring suit that must be paid by the plaintiff would also cut down the number of frivolous lawsuits.
otpu
Posted by otpu | September 5, 2007 9:15 PM
Posted on September 5, 2007 21:15
At the time I retired from Lucent (2001) the U.S., with 5% of the world's population, had 70% of the lawyers on the planet. Indications are that the Brits are trying hard to catch up...
Posted by John C. | September 6, 2007 7:48 AM
Posted on September 6, 2007 07:48
One of the ideas I put forward a bit ago was to put a 10 year 'sunset law' into effect on ALL government laws and regulations.
In this day and age it ought to be very simple to put such work up on a server and get some feedback from the American People. Good laws and regulations ought to sail through with nary a complaint or need to change it.... bad ones... ahhhh...
For older laws, the next time the last digit of their enactment comes up as a year, that is when it gets reviewed.
This is called a 'feedback loop' and the US Government isn't getting that from the People these days as they haven't shown any ability to constrain themselves. That is why bare majorities during Presidential election years vote and only pluralities during off-year elections vote: Congress does not hold themselves accountable for the mass of federal laws and regulations put in since the early 1970's (something like 2/3 of all laws and regulations are post-1973, if memory serves).
Such a thing might, indeed, stop Congress up... require actual review of regulations... make government concentrate on 'governing' not on nannystating us to death. As it is Congress wants to instate 'The Law of Rules' and thems that make the Rules... rule, not govern.
Posted by ajacksonian | September 6, 2007 8:55 AM
Posted on September 6, 2007 08:55
Also...some laws are made to address temporary fads that have become problems...lets take bicycling. It used to be a problem in some areas, because kids would use walkways to bike, racing each other. If some council made laws about it to prevent bodily injury to the citizenry of more mature age, it might seem pretty useless now. Today, it isn't bicycles, it's skateboarding, and tomorrow who knows _what_ the youngsters will be using! So - some laws are good, but if they're more basic, they might stay more generally applicable. The Ten Commandments "rule"...keep it simple. It's all in the interpretation. We also need to be able to get rid of judges. After all, they're the ones who allow some of the frivolous suits to go forward.
Aren't there some countries that make the losing side pay all court costs of the winning side? That could slow suits down somewhat...
Posted by suek | September 6, 2007 10:44 AM
Posted on September 6, 2007 10:44
Again...the focus has become one of the individual winning, not on justice. I ran across this yesterday, and find it as shocking as the Nifong case, assuming the claim made by this article is correct. Nifong should be in jail, and so should the those responsible for this selective editing. I _really_ don't understand this one.
http://newsmax.com/insidecover/Haditha/2007/09/05/30144.html
Posted by suek | September 7, 2007 11:31 AM
Posted on September 7, 2007 11:31