What happens when supply exceeds demand? Well the result is a fundamental that apparently is not being taught at the numerous and very expensive law schools of the land.
According to the New York Times the legal cup has runneth over. Lawyers can’t find jobs as lawyers. Apparently, we don’t need all the lawyers the law schools are turning out. Holy Paper Chase Batman, can this be true? How can we have reached the maximum number of needed lawyers? And if that is true, wouldn’t the lawyer production machine at least be slowing down? Wouldn't the feds stop making big loans to these law students who are piling up big debt to pay really big salaries to law school professors? Particularly if there is no work for them?
We know what you are thinking. We at TheFundamentals are just writing this essay because we’ve been railing against lawyers since we first put pen to paper. We’re just crowing over the fleeting good fortune of an economic downturn that has temporarily shut the spigot on the flow of really prestigious; really important employment opportunities for all those fresh faced, high achieving, lawyer TV show watching youth. These kids who hope to be the next Clarence Darrow; the next Felix Frankfurter; the next Melvin Belli; the next Rudolph Giuliani; the next Hillary Clinton; the next Perry Mason.
We have been researching and analyzing and presenting facts for two years now that display an inordinate connection between too many lawyers and declining economic results. We have displayed the same correlation between high priced medical care and no difference in life expectations. We have documented unbelievable levels of government employment and displayed facts about levels of pay, benefits and pensions that not only exceed private sector statistics but exceed them by substantial (50%+) margins. We have referenced educational studies displaying the poor results of American students compared with students from many different countries including European countries, Asian countries and even here on our continent – Canada. They all do better than US students.
And what is the common thread among the high cost, highly paid, highly benefited and highly pensioned people servicing these key areas of our economy: education, lawyers, health care? What is the connection between public education, health care, litigation activities and government services and the poor and declining specific results in these important fields? What is the one consistent, uniform participant across the board? Whose fingerprints are all over the disconnect between cost, expenditure and results?
Government.
Government pays the tuition for students to get law degrees even though there are no jobs and no need for all the lawyers being turned out by the law schools. They regulate the medical insurers and run the largest medical insurance program in the nation. They subsidize doctors, regulate and subsidize pharmaceutical companies and they set the reimbursement rates for many procedures and therapies. Cost is double any other country. Life span? Equal to or lower than the other countries. They dominate the education field and set laws and rules that encourage unions and the poor results the union members produce. They eliminate the ability of competition and new entries in the field of education through these and many other practices. They just plain like the status quo. They live off it. They do not wish to and will not change it. Be it their own government services or education services or medical services or filling the law schools with future F. Lee Bailey’s, the fingerprints of government are all over these bloated inefficient and overpaid providers of service.
In the article, an Indiana university law professor, one William Henderson, was quoted on the topic of how we cut back on having too many laws schools and too many law students and too many lawyer graduates. He said, “Ultimately,” he says, “some public authority will have to step in because law schools and lawyers are incapable of policing themselves.” Read the entire article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html?scp=1&sq=law%20&%20school%20&%20losing%20&%20game&st=cse
The law professor thinks that a public authority (we think that means “government”) will have to step in to fix the situation. This is pretty rich folks. He thinks the government can fix it. They’re the ones who messed it up. Is this what they mean in law school when they refer to “circular reasoning?” Hey Professor, "What is the common link between government and the law schools and lawyers that are now finding we just don’t need them anymore?" Stumped? Hint: many congressmen/senators and other elected officials are lawyers.
1 comment:
Today's column is confusing, since the Fundamentalist creates a quote. Bill Henderson said that law schools are not doing a good enough job in terms of providing a realistic outlook for what awaits the graduates in the job market. Professor Henderson, who teaches at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, conducts a class on the legal profession that does exactly that. Instead of noting any government role in funding law schools, he notes that students are saddled with loans that are owed to parties other than the government. Since these loans are virtually impossible to get out of in bankruptcy, the role of the government is not large nor do the guarantee of the loans have any significant effect on the deficit.
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