Big Law: A Waste of Talented Minds?

[Blaze991]

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<p>So why does someone’s work have to be noble when perhaps their lives indeed are? Is it not acceptable for someone to work as a corporate slave, to use your example OP, but then to dedicate their free time and their money to worthy causes?

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<p>This is what I surmise:</p>

<p>That question raises a strong point. By virtue of the high salaries of big law lawyers, they are able to do noble things with their money, whether that be as philanthropic as donating to charity, or as simple as providing adequately for their children’s needs, such as saving for expensive college educations.</p>

<p>Indeed, the latter point, from what a lawyer has told me, is one of the biggest motivations of lawyers. She told me that, once a young lawyer has his/her first child, their motivation to work becomes clearer and more refined. Having children gives young lawyers working in big law a strong, highly natural motive to work as well as justification for their suffering that often accompanies working in big law – to provide for offspring.</p>

<p>With all that said, there seems to be a distinct difference between the work of the elite doctors (ones who typically graduated from prestigious med schools) and elite lawyers (ones who typically graduated from elite law schools). “Elite” is an important qualification because it narrows the discussion to the most intelligest and cultured people in a profession; in other words, the ones who are most suited to influence society. Many elite doctors can take direct satisfaction in saving lives – whether through practice or research – which is certainly noble. Elite lawyers, on the other hand, cannot help people in such a direct way. </p>

<p>Arguments have been made that lawyers, as a group, play an important role in society. However, as has been pointed out, many lawyers are potentially hurting society by filing frivolous law suits. In regard specifically to big law lawyers, their contributions to society have been argued to be of abstract importance, helping “in the long run” or “in the cbig picture.” Such arguments may hold great truth, but they are not totally convincing. It is hard to see how litigation dealing with insurance is the type of activity on which a good society must depend. This is the type of work big law or elite lawyers seem to do – corporate related. It seems that the much less prestigious lawyer who is a district attorney does work that is of more societal importance. </p>

<p>It seems that many times, unfoprtunately, law students are pressured into taking a big law job because they are loaded with debt and need a high-paying job. On this point, loan-foregiveness programs are quite nice to those who graduated from T14 law schools!</p>

[cartera45]

<p>I don’t see that having kids influences associates to work harder. It may influence them to work smarter. The number one reason I hear for lawyers wanting to leave biglaw is to spend more time with their kids. They are very willing to sacrifice money for time with them. Twenty years ago, I heard this almost always from women. Now I hear it just as much from men. Every day, a male associate will tell me that he has a baby or a toddler or two at home and he is tired of getting home after they go to bed and leaving before they get up. One scenario I see more now is that the mother stays home with the kids for a matter of months or even over a year and then she goes back to work in order for the father to take a less demanding job so they can both spend time with the kids. I don’t see nearly as many 2 biglaw households with one or sometimes more than one full time nannies as I did 20 years ago.</p>

[Greybeard]

<p>Blzae,</p>

<p>You’re assuming facts not in evidence. Your assumption that people in “Big Law” spend their days working on frivolous lawsuits is unfounded, in the view of the experienced attorneys on this board. I practiced as a litigator for twelve years, and have worked in-house as a transactions attorney who sometimes manages corporate litigation. I have seen few frivolous lawsuits. I would venture to say that the percentage of frivolous cases that are handled by Big Law firms is particularly low. And a significant percentage of people working in Big Law don’t even work on litigation. Those that do are typically dealing with cases in which millions of dollars are at stake.</p>

<p>You write, “*t is hard to see how litigation dealing with insurance is the type of activity on which a good society must depend.” How so? Insurance is a method for risk allocation used by all developed economies. Most litigation deals with insurance to some degree.</p>

<p>My view is that people who don’t understand the importance of the work attorneys do should do something else.</p>

[hayden]

<p>As I write this, I just came home from church. I drove there in a car with seat belts, because people injured in car accidents became too expensive for the auto industry to make cars that didn’t have safety features. I walked up the sidewalk that is well maintained because it’s too expensive to risk people tripping and falling. I know that the kids in Sunday school will be playing on swing sets and slides that are built on cedar chips and rubber-based groundings because kids are prone to fall, and places that have playgrounds have to build safe ones because of the fear of lawsuits. </p>

<p>How is any of that bad? It is a way that we as a society build in economic pressures to foster a safer world. My family vacationed in France recently, and my young son fell off the swings. He injured himself badly because the swing set was built on top of a rock outcrop. That’s shocking to an American - but the French apparently don’t worry too much about it. As a parent, I’m glad that manufacturers of toys and playgrounds have to worry about safety as much as - or I should say, as part of - their concern about profit and loss. </p>

<p>Blzae, if you are not comfortable with working in BigLaw, then by all means find another type of job, or another career. But I for one feel fortunate that safety is an economic concern in our country, and that lawyers are a part of the reason for that.</p>

[lskinner]

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How is any of that bad?

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<p>Of course it’s not bad at all. I suppose the problem is that it’s hard to point at a specific lawyer and say identify him or her as being responsible for a specific accident that didn’t happen or was less severe.</p>

<p>On the other hand, it’s very easy to see the connection between a given doctor and a given positive outcome for a patient.</p>

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My family vacationed in France recently, and my young son fell off the swings. He injured himself badly because the swing set was built on top of a rock outcrop

</p>

<p>Sorry to hear that. I imagine that if you had filed suit over it, people would have seen it as one of the frivolous lawsuits that’s supposedly a plague on the court system.</p>

[lskinner]

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You write, “*t is hard to see how litigation dealing with insurance is the type of activity on which a good society must depend.” How so? Insurance is a method for risk allocation used by all developed economies.

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<p>I agree. Insurance is absolutely vital in a modern economy. See all that fancy equipment at a hospital or doctor’s office? I guarantee you that the manufacture, delivery, and operation of the equipment entails and is enabled by many different kinds of insurance.</p>

<p>What’s interesting about an insurance contract is that it has only a minor physical manifestation in the real world. It’s just a piece of paper written by an attorney. Some people have a hard time seeing how a piece of paper can be so vital to their health and well being. </p>

<p>(Of course, the reality is that an insurance contract is far more than just a piece of paper. But it exists as an abstract thing in the world of ideas.)</p>

[sakky]

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I’m not sure if the your criteria is so good for measuring the effect of lawyers or lawsuits. Also, how many lawsuits were filed last year in Jefferson County, Mississippi?

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<p>Well, I would assume that it’s much less than before - because the state of Mississippi recently passed tight tort reform laws. But that’s precisely the point - it seems to indicate that there were quite a few shenanigans going on in the past. </p>

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In any event, I would note that the County where my office is – New York County – has a huge number of lawsuits and other civil matters pending and is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation.

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<p>Uh, New York County has a lot of EVERYTHING - lots of people, lots of businesses, lots of everything. So of course when you just have lots of people and lots of businesses, naturally you’re also going to have plenty of lawsuits and civil matters just as a simple matter of probability. That doesn’t show that lots of lawsuits equates to lots of economic growth. In fact, the opposite is probably true. After all, back before the Mississippi tort reform law, would you consider Jefferson County to be a hotbed of economic activity? </p>

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So what?

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<p>So that means that the activities of some lawyers can drive away the activities of others. That’s ‘so what’. </p>

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No, I meant to say that lawyers as a group serve an important social purpose.

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<p>Sure, * as a group *. But I’m not talking about that. I am talking about ways to make the system better. Policemen as a group, certainly serve an important social purpose. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that there are corrupt cops out there. </p>

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I’m not sure what you mean by “ambulance chaser,” but I imagine you would agree that some doctors out there are really just butchers.

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<p>Of course! Nobody is saying that other groups are perfect. But that’s not what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about is what can be done to make the system of law work better so that more lawyers can actually perform socially useful functions. After all, the OP basically asked whether he might end up as little more than a corporate drone lawyer who doesn’t really serve the ends of society. I strongly suspect there are ways to align the interests of lawyers with society so that you don’t have, for instance, thieves suing the people whose houses they broke into.</p>

[sakky]

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Even putting aside the possibility of sanctions, I highly doubt it would work. In my own practice (employment litigation), I get perhaps 500 to 1000 calls per year from disgruntled former employees. Most of whom have no claim whatsoever against their former employers. If I could file suit on behalf of each one and extract a quick $3000 nuisance settlement, I’d be living in a mansion and driving a ferrari. I’m not and I don’t.</p>

<p>Because the reality is that a lot of defendants fight really hard even when you have a good case. A lawyer who tried to build his or her practice on weak cases would quickly drown in cases, I suspect.

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I wouldn’t assume, though, that frivolous lawsuits are all that common. People who have been sued are quick to claim that they’ve been sued frivolously, just as people who are accused of crimes often claim that they were framed. Neither phenomenon is unknown. They’re just not as common as insurance companies, or prison inmates, or corporate executives would have you believe, in my experience.

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<p>I think you guys are missing the point that it doesn’t even have to get to the lawsuit stage. The simple * fear * of lawsuits drives people to engage in behavior that is arguably socially inefficient. For example, I’m sure that bluedevilmike could tell you about instances of doctors who run unnecessary and redundant (and expensive) tests on patients because they don’t want to later be sued for not performing such-and-such test. Employers are often times afraid to sack poorly performing workers because they fear a discrimination lawsuit (as protected minority classes, including women, make up about 75% of all Americans). In other words, the simple possibility of lawsuits induces plenty of cover-your-butt activity that is socially inefficient.</p>

<p>Allow me to quote from Thomas Sowell:</p>

<p>"A 1977 survey reported: ‘Appelate judges estimate that 80 percent of all appeals are frivolous’. The cost of all this is not simply the salaries of judges and lawyers. As in other areas, the real costs are the * foregone alternatives * - notably speedy trials to clear the innocent and conviet the guilty, so that the public is not prey to criminals walking the streets while legal processes drag on. In civil cases, the costs of delay are obvious in cases with large economic resources idled by legal uncertainties, but they are no less real in cases where child custody or other emotionally-devastating matters drag on. In short, there is a social trade-off between the costs and the benefits of increased litigation or increasingly eaborate litigation. The institutional question is, how are these social costs and benfits conveyed to the individual decision makers: the parties, the lawyers, and the judges?</p>

<p>To some parties the costs of litigation are not conveyed * at all * but are paid by the taxpayers, as in most criminal cases, where trial lawyers, appeals, and prison law libraries in which to prepare appeals are at taxpayer expense. The more deadly costs of having criminals at large while waiting trial or appeal are also paid by the public. All these costs have been increased within recent decades by court decision. Lawyers, of course, do not pay costs but instead reap benefits as the law becomes more intricate and time-consuming - and lawyers have in fact opposed attempts at simplication, such as ‘no-fault’ automobile insurance…" - Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions, p.230.</p>

[lskinner]

<p>

The simple fear of lawsuits drives people to engage in behavior that is arguably socially inefficient.

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<p>Yeah, behavior like installing expensive panic bars on the exits to dance clubs. </p>

<p>And being careful to apply disciplinary policies in a consistent way and to carefully document an employee’s poor performance before discharging him or her.</p>

<p>And double checking a patient’s CT-scans to make sure they are not missing early signs of cancer.</p>

<p>By the way, it’s interesting that these unnecessary tests that doctors supposedly order to avoid lawsuits often end up bringing in more revenue for the doctor and/or his laboratory.</p>

[bluedevilmike]

<p>Natural experiments as analyzed by economists seem to indicate that total health care expenditures decline by about 6% in the presence of caps on damages awarded in a lawsuit situation without increasing the rate of adverse health outcomes.</p>

<hr>

<p>And surely there exist situations where there is such a thing as excessive caution, LS. You’ve given several examples of reasonable caution, and that’s why lawsuits in general are necessary and valuable, but surely there exist examples that really are unnecessary as well – things that have costs dramatically out of proportion to their social benefits.</p>

[lskinner]

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Well, I would assume that it’s much less than before

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<p>Well, if all you have to offer is guesswork and assumptions, then you’ll excuse me if I don’t put to much stock in the metric you proposed.</p>

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Uh, New York County has a lot of EVERYTHING

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<p>So what? Sakky’s law applies only in counties with low population?</p>

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But I’m not talking about that. I am talking about ways to make the system better. Policemen as a group, certainly serve an important social purpose. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that there are corrupt cops out there.

</p>

<p>You are free to talk about whatever you like. The question I am mainly focusing on is whether it’s somehow a “waste” for a person to become an attorney, as opposed to a doctor.</p>

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What we’re talking about is what can be done to make the system of law work better

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<p>That’s what you are talking about. That’s not the focus of what I’m talking about. I’m not claiming that the system is perfect.</p>

[lskinner]

<p>

And surely there exist situations where there is such a thing as excessive caution, LS.

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<p>Sure, but I don’t think it’s the rampant drain on our economy that some people seem to suggest it is.</p>

<p>Anyway, the situation now is far preferable to how things were 50 or 100 years ago. I had a professor in law school who was seriously disfigured in a car accident back in the early 60s when his car burst into flames after a collision. If he’d had a modern car, he would have walked away.</p>

<p>At that time, there was no EEOC and many companies openly discriminated against non-whites.</p>

[hayden]

<p>We probably shouldn’t just compare physicians and attorneys. As some have pointed out, the legal profession provides societal benefits, while inidividual physicians can save lives. That may be true; but the corollary is also true: few lawyers are responsible for client deaths, which can and does happen with physicians. </p>

<p>How many of us are lucky enough to have jobs that directly provide direct service to people’s lives? Does a butcher? A car mechanic? An accountant? If you want a job that makes a life-saving difference to a patient, or directly puts food on the table of a poor family, then perhaps you must eliminate not only the legal profession, but most other jobs as well.</p>

<p>For many of us, satisfaction with a job comes from working to the best of our ability, with integrity and professionalism, with people whom we respect and enjoy as colleagues. On the other hand, satisfaction with a life comes from what we do with the rest of our time.</p>

[Mr_Payne]

<p>An entrepreneur or scientist or engineer or doctor seem to add more to society. Opinion stated.</p>

[lskinner]

<p>

We probably shouldn’t just compare physicians and attorneys. As some have pointed out, the legal profession provides societal benefits, while inidividual physicians can save lives. That may be true; but the corollary is also true: few lawyers are responsible for client deaths, which can and does happen with physicians. </p>

<p>How many of us are lucky enough to have jobs that directly provide direct service to people’s lives? Does a butcher? A car mechanic? An accountant? If you want a job that makes a life-saving difference to a patient, or directly puts food on the table of a poor family, then perhaps you must eliminate not only the legal profession, but most other jobs as well.

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<p>I basically agree. Consider the case of a doctor’s billing clerk. She doesn’t directly save anyone’s life, but her job is absolutely vital. </p>

<p>As I said before, I think a lot people have a hard time understanding the importance of abstractions for day to day life in the modern world. To them, it just seems like a lot of people are essentially parasites who are getting rich by shuffling paper and really aren’t adding any value.</p>

[Greybeard]

<p>“An entrepreneur or scientist or engineer or doctor seem to add more to society. Opinion stated.”</p>

<p>“Seem to” is the operative phrase here. Show me a country that has no lawyers, and I’ll show you a country that has no entreneurs, outside of the Tony Soprano variety.</p>

[Mr_Payne]

<p>And yet, the percentage of lawyers in the US (when compared to the total labor population) has been on the rise for the previous 30 years (and likely much longer than that). I wonder why our previous level of lawyers was insufficient. I’m not convinced it was.</p>

[Greybeard]

<p>The number of people licensed to practice law in the US is a function, principally, of two factors:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The number of seats in the country’s law schools for law students. Growth in this number in recent decades was facilitated by a policy by the ABA to increase the number of lawyers, and by the fact that universities often make a profit on their law schools, thanks to the large class sizes afforded by the socratic method. There is still a great deal of unmet demand for these seats: only 3 of the nation’s 181 ABA-accredited law schools accept 50% or more of their applicants.</p></li>
<li><p>The standards set by the bar examiners in various states. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Are there too many people practicing law? That’s the sort of question that’s best left to the market, in my view. But in California, half of the members of the State Bar make more than $100,000 a year. Their services cost more than a substantial percentage of the population can afford, I’m afraid.
<a href=“http://calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/reports/2006_State-Bar-Survey.pdf[/url]”>http://calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/reports/2006_State-Bar-Survey.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[Mr_Payne]

<p>Many lawyers practice rent seeking behavior and create very little value. Law is one of the few professions that actively creates more regulation in order to justify it’s own existence.</p>

[bluedevilmike]

<p>

Law is one of the few professions that actively creates more regulation in order to justify it’s own existence.

Lawyers are certainly not the exception in this regard. Doctors demand licensing regulations to protect their market share – so, for that matter, do haircutters. Firefighters enforce brush regulations, police officers issue silly tickets, insurance agents benefit from complexity, accountants need incomprehensible taxes, certain activists need civil discontent…</p>

<p>People cause problems in their own self-interest all the time.</p>