Cutting Back On Lawyers

THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE attending law school for the year 2013-2014 has decreased by several thousand from a year ago. The number of law school students has in fact decreased rather steadily for the past several years. The American BAR Association is blaming the decline on the same old scapegoat; our recent and prolonged recession, which, if you didn't know better, you would swear was still not over. But possibly there are other factors involved. The United States of America is the most legalistic society in the world, and the most legalistic society in the entire history of the world. One third of the world's attorneys at law are Americans. Because the country was founded exclusivley for the purpsoe of replacing the British ruling aristocracy with an American ruling aristocracy (all fifty six signers of the Declaration of Independence were either lawyers, or wealthy land owners, all aristocrats), the protection of property rights was considered paramount. The United States of America is a nation of the property, for the property, and by the property. But could it be that in our modern world, the saturation of American society by lawyers has reached its peak, and is now declining to a more market based, market-appropiate level, like all commodities do in a free market? Or could it be that today's college students are digresing from the legal profession, because the profession has gotten such a negative reputation over the past several decades, beginning with Watergate in the nineteen seventies? Who knows? Maybe the recession is the root cause. But, one is free to hope that American society is coming to its senses, and starting to figure out that even in a law suit happy culture, there are limits.