Everyone’s favorite (or at least most quotable) Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia is once again making the headlines with his delightfully grouchy take on the legal profession. When asked by a CSPAN reporter about the quality of lawyers who appear before him, Scalia gave a complimentary answer, affirming the high caliber of the lawyers he sees. But then he went on to give his two cents about the what that means for our society:
I mean there’d be a, you know, a defense or public defender from Podunk, you know, and this woman is really brilliant, you know. Why isn’t she out inventing the automobile or, you know, doing something productive for this society?
I mean lawyers, after all, don’t produce anything. They enable other people to produce and to go on with their lives efficiently and in an atmosphere of freedom. That’s important, but it doesn’t put food on the table and there have to be other people who are doing that. And I worry that we are devoting too many of our very best minds to this enterprise.
And they appear here in the Court, I mean, even the ones who will only argue here once and will never come again. I’m usually impressed with how good they are. Sometimes you get one who’s not so good. But, no, by and large I don’t have any complaint about the quality of counsel, except maybe we’re wasting some of our best minds.
All of us students who are going through law school during the current apocalypse can’t help but be apprehensive about the future of the legal profession and our place within it. To have Justice Scalia point out that we are probably wasting our time (or at least brainpower) doesn’t exactly make me feel any better. I tend to agree with him, though. A legal education is a wonderful thing, and I wouldn’t trade mine for anything, but I have to wonder whether the world really needs so many JD’s running around. The faltering legal job market may suggest that it doesn’t. And who is to say that the person sitting in their 1L torts class right now dutifully highlighting Palsgraf or trying to parse through the perpetually cloudy title to Blackacre in property wouldn’t create a higher net gain for society if she was applying her brilliant mind to other projects? Whether they were hypnotized by the Biglaw dollar signs, press-ganged by parental insistence, or dazzled by visions of fighting for social justice, first year law students are now locked in.
They will be lawyers whether they like it or not, but maybe if there weren’t such a cultural fetish for the J.D., they could be writing the great American novel, designing the ultimate green house, or curing cancer. Is Justice Scalia hitting the nail on the head? Why are so many people drawn into law school? And what would you be doing if you weren’t in the law?
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I have a list of things I’d be doing if I weren’t trying to get into law. Brewing beer professionally is at the top of this list.
I had an interviewer [who shall obviously remain nameless] say to me the other day: “So, you’re clearly very smart . . . shouldn’t you be out doing something productive for society?”
The problem is that the way the law is set up, we can’t have inventors without scientists who go into law. We can’t have M&A without some serious business-minded people who go to law. Maybe it’s true that there could have been a better way to set up the system in the first place, but that’s just not the case.
It may be true that if the system were set up differently in the first place, then this wouldn’t be an issue at all. But right now, I would bet that the average patent attorney (for instance) provides a greater “net gain” to society than he would have if he stayed in a laboratory.
Pastry school. Or, you know, camping out on Duff Goldman’s doorstep trying to get him to hire me.
No. Really. I make an… ok looking cake…
@Joshua Auriemma, You are completely correct here:
This also cuts the other way, incidentally. Notice what a hot mess the Bluebook is–no sane typographer would write a style manual in that way–but lawyers got hold of it, and look what happened.
I’m reminded of one of my favorite lawyer quotes:
“A lawyer’s either a social engineer or he’s a parasite on society.”
- Charles Hamilton Houston.
Mr. Houston was definitely a social engineer (if not familiar I highly recommend looking him up!) and there are many many examples of attorneys who contributed to society – and the means by which they were able contribute was at least related to their legal background – their JD’s were not wasted even if they ultimately didn’t end up practicing law.
I think whether an attorney does something which benefits society is really a matter of 1) perspective (I think Scalia might just be an old grump that would be more inclined to see things in a negative light!) and 2) the objectives/intentions of the individual attorney. The work Mr. Houston and others did with the NAACP is a great example of lawyers impacting society through their work as lawyers – the work most lawyers do might not have such a significant impact but it doesn’t mean that they’re not being “productive for this society…”
As I’ve been attending Amicus/Reprieve Death Penalty training this weekend, I am somewhat saddened Scalia feels lawyers are wasting their talents.
I’d say if you’ve got a gift for smelling BS and injustice pisses you off enough to get organised and do something about it – then being a lawyer just maybe is what’s meant to be.
@ouij, But is it possible that we might be better off (as a society) if more of those serious business minded people applied their talents to create the next Google? Maybe it’s a problem of volume…
@Tricia, Scalia an old grump? How dare you! The man is positively effervescent. I totally agree about the intention of the individual attorney. I think that individually, lawyers can have a great impact but maybe there is a problem of glut.