As someone who recently graduated law school and passed the New York bar, but has yet to motivate himself to get a job working as a lawyer, I took some interest in the heated exchange between K-Punk and Luka concerning lawyers.
Here's the best reason for thinking ill of lawyers. They are intellectual laborers. They toil over their computer keyboards for hours each day, upwards of 80 hours a week, skimming boring case law, crafting boring arguments, when they could be channeling their efforts into writing novels, writing plays, writing philosophy, writing poltical agit prop. They could use their talents to do something interesting. Instead, they allow the fear of not having a roof over their head at age fifty or sixty to determine the course of their youth and middle ages. Or they let the worry that without a steady and substantial income they'd be unable to win the affection of women render them squares in gray suits . . . . They want a modicum of prestige but aren't willing to put forth the effort required by more demanding lines of work. They want a modicum of intellectual satisfaction, the satisfaction of writing a winning argument, but know they will never have the satisfaction of doing work that is intrinsically interesting, truly important.
But even here, the lawyer may not come off so badly. Compare him with the academic, let's say the Shakespeare scholar who adds his bit of commentary to the reams of commentary already in the libraries, or the Deleuze scholar who does the same to Deleuze. At least the lawyer deals with real live disputes, though the dispute may be trivial and the area of the law well settled.
And let's compare the mediocre lawyer with the mediocre scholar. The mediocre lawyer lives in a city. He can afford to go to decent restaurants. He has time in the evening to do as he sees fit (unless he's a corporate lawyer). Perhaps he reads a book, catches a film. Perhaps he has a girlfriend or wife. Goes out drinking, follows music. Whatever. And at work he sits in a leather chair, has air conditioning and a secretary. And he gets to deal with people his own age. Perhaps he thinks they're boring and uptight, and perhaps they think the same of him. But that's how it goes. As for the mediocre scholar, he's an adjunct professor at three different community colleges in some rural state or province. He hardly has any money in his pocket. Cannot even afford to drink, or if he does it's at a grungey student bar. For the most part he spends his time trying to get published. Struggling to say what has already been said by more capable scholars. Down in the depths of a dusty, musty library.
The lawyer has the comfort of knowing that people don't expect much of him. He knows that they believe that he's in it just for the modicum of money, comfort, prestige. They understand, therefore, that the law is not really his profession. That it's just a job for him. He's free to pursue other interests, should he spend his time that way. The scholar, by contrast, is expected to have a calling. His existence is supposed to be exalted. To the extent he retreats from his articles and books, he shirks his solemn duty. The scholar must live at a remove from society, the lawyer is its creature. And for both, this is for better and worse.
And remember this too: the scholar can become a lawyer, and the lawyer a scholar. Their skills are roughly the same. They need only go back to grad school to get new degrees. All that is lost is the effort already spent.
Even so, the scholar is a teacher, he helps people improve themselves, aquire talents and skills. The scholar may even help his students reach their "ownmost potential," though most will inevitably abandon that potential. Lawyers, at best, advance the interests of their clients. If the clients are workers, this is perhaps for the good. If the clients have had their rights infringed by unconstitutional government action, perhaps also for the good. And this is a weak "perhaps."
So that's the best argument against lawyers.
The second reason for thinking ill of lawyers is that they are sophists. Rather than saying what they really think, they devise arguments to suit the interests of their clients. But this is perhaps overstated. That is, it is relatively rare for a lawyer to argue one side of an issue in one case, and then the other side of the same issue in another. There's some leeway here, but rarely direct conflict. That's why there are prosecutors and defense attorneys, lawyers who specialize in representing plaintiffs, lawyers who specialize in representing corporate defendants. Unless a lawyer's inordinately mercenary (which is, err, not uncommon), he'll specialize in representing positions for which he has sympathy.
As for the arguments that lawyers devise, they usually devise as many as they can think of. What may carry great weight for one judge may strike another judge as unimportant. Sometimes legal arguments are logically seamless, others times akin to music, shifting from theme to theme. Sometimes arguments are like houses, each plank bolstering what would otherwise fall, and sometimes arguments are cumulative.
What lawyers do not do, however, is present arguments that work dialectically. Lawyers do not strive to clarify the Law. Lawyers try to win cases. In so doing they may offer an explanation of the law, but only if the explanation advances rather than undermines their case.
It is up to judges to render decisions that fit with the wider law. And on this point, many theorists have argued that the Law moves by processes internal to it toward its own clarification. The Law as Reason's Own Self-Understanding. Yes, at any point in time the law is in disarray. Various incompatible ways of justifying decisions may be current at any one time. But over the long haul, only justifications that cohere with the structure of the law remain in circulation. Specious (or extraneous) justifications are squeezed out.
So lawyers are sophists. But the Law is the Work of Reason (though Reason perhaps pragmatically mutates in the course of its unfolding, rather than developing in strictly rational fashion).
The third reason for thinking ill of lawyers is that they help perpetuate the system, private property relations, and so forth. But on this point, perhaps more blame should be directed against legislatures, not lawyers as such. Do not forget that at the height of socialism in Britain and the New Deal in America, there were still lawyers. Even were private property entirely abolished, lawyers would still have the business of establishing the rights and immunities of their clients in court. For people will continue to injure each other, negligently or intentionally, and so need lawyers (unless tort law is abolished and replaced by a scheme of universal insurance). People will continue to break or underperform on contracts (many, presumably, with complicated provisions), people will continue to mug, kill, rape one another, people will continue to slander one another, divorce one another, injure or imperil each other's rights . . . .
Only a very primitive society could do without lawyers. Or a society just on the other side of revolution, for about fifteen minutes.
And this is because public justice requires that like cases be treated alike. That a case that arises today be treated the same way as a similar case that arose in the past, barring exceptional circumstances. And from this requirement comes the need for written law and for persons well versed in the law.
The fourth reason to think ill of lawyers is that, like priests, they disempower common people. Just as the priest disempowers believers by mediating between them and their god, so the lawyer serves to keep average citizens ignorant of the law. The gods are shrouded in mystification, the law grows distant, arcane . . . . Yet there is great fallacy in this comparison. There simply are no gods, at least not as traditionally conceived. But there can be no doubt as to the law's existence. Moreover, men have no real need of gods, but if they are to have justice they must also have law. And if they are to have a sophisticated society, if they are to live in any way other than as pigs, they will need written laws to organize their relations. And insofar as the law is written, there will be pages of law to study and read. Therefore, a certain class of citizens will always be required to fill this purpose. For not everyone will have the time, let alone the desire, to know the ways of the law . . . . But as for gods, nothing need be written, and therefore nothing need be read
Are there other reasons to despise lawyers?
Here's the best reason for thinking ill of lawyers. They are intellectual laborers. They toil over their computer keyboards for hours each day, upwards of 80 hours a week, skimming boring case law, crafting boring arguments, when they could be channeling their efforts into writing novels, writing plays, writing philosophy, writing poltical agit prop. They could use their talents to do something interesting. Instead, they allow the fear of not having a roof over their head at age fifty or sixty to determine the course of their youth and middle ages. Or they let the worry that without a steady and substantial income they'd be unable to win the affection of women render them squares in gray suits . . . . They want a modicum of prestige but aren't willing to put forth the effort required by more demanding lines of work. They want a modicum of intellectual satisfaction, the satisfaction of writing a winning argument, but know they will never have the satisfaction of doing work that is intrinsically interesting, truly important.
But even here, the lawyer may not come off so badly. Compare him with the academic, let's say the Shakespeare scholar who adds his bit of commentary to the reams of commentary already in the libraries, or the Deleuze scholar who does the same to Deleuze. At least the lawyer deals with real live disputes, though the dispute may be trivial and the area of the law well settled.
And let's compare the mediocre lawyer with the mediocre scholar. The mediocre lawyer lives in a city. He can afford to go to decent restaurants. He has time in the evening to do as he sees fit (unless he's a corporate lawyer). Perhaps he reads a book, catches a film. Perhaps he has a girlfriend or wife. Goes out drinking, follows music. Whatever. And at work he sits in a leather chair, has air conditioning and a secretary. And he gets to deal with people his own age. Perhaps he thinks they're boring and uptight, and perhaps they think the same of him. But that's how it goes. As for the mediocre scholar, he's an adjunct professor at three different community colleges in some rural state or province. He hardly has any money in his pocket. Cannot even afford to drink, or if he does it's at a grungey student bar. For the most part he spends his time trying to get published. Struggling to say what has already been said by more capable scholars. Down in the depths of a dusty, musty library.
The lawyer has the comfort of knowing that people don't expect much of him. He knows that they believe that he's in it just for the modicum of money, comfort, prestige. They understand, therefore, that the law is not really his profession. That it's just a job for him. He's free to pursue other interests, should he spend his time that way. The scholar, by contrast, is expected to have a calling. His existence is supposed to be exalted. To the extent he retreats from his articles and books, he shirks his solemn duty. The scholar must live at a remove from society, the lawyer is its creature. And for both, this is for better and worse.
And remember this too: the scholar can become a lawyer, and the lawyer a scholar. Their skills are roughly the same. They need only go back to grad school to get new degrees. All that is lost is the effort already spent.
Even so, the scholar is a teacher, he helps people improve themselves, aquire talents and skills. The scholar may even help his students reach their "ownmost potential," though most will inevitably abandon that potential. Lawyers, at best, advance the interests of their clients. If the clients are workers, this is perhaps for the good. If the clients have had their rights infringed by unconstitutional government action, perhaps also for the good. And this is a weak "perhaps."
So that's the best argument against lawyers.
The second reason for thinking ill of lawyers is that they are sophists. Rather than saying what they really think, they devise arguments to suit the interests of their clients. But this is perhaps overstated. That is, it is relatively rare for a lawyer to argue one side of an issue in one case, and then the other side of the same issue in another. There's some leeway here, but rarely direct conflict. That's why there are prosecutors and defense attorneys, lawyers who specialize in representing plaintiffs, lawyers who specialize in representing corporate defendants. Unless a lawyer's inordinately mercenary (which is, err, not uncommon), he'll specialize in representing positions for which he has sympathy.
As for the arguments that lawyers devise, they usually devise as many as they can think of. What may carry great weight for one judge may strike another judge as unimportant. Sometimes legal arguments are logically seamless, others times akin to music, shifting from theme to theme. Sometimes arguments are like houses, each plank bolstering what would otherwise fall, and sometimes arguments are cumulative.
What lawyers do not do, however, is present arguments that work dialectically. Lawyers do not strive to clarify the Law. Lawyers try to win cases. In so doing they may offer an explanation of the law, but only if the explanation advances rather than undermines their case.
It is up to judges to render decisions that fit with the wider law. And on this point, many theorists have argued that the Law moves by processes internal to it toward its own clarification. The Law as Reason's Own Self-Understanding. Yes, at any point in time the law is in disarray. Various incompatible ways of justifying decisions may be current at any one time. But over the long haul, only justifications that cohere with the structure of the law remain in circulation. Specious (or extraneous) justifications are squeezed out.
So lawyers are sophists. But the Law is the Work of Reason (though Reason perhaps pragmatically mutates in the course of its unfolding, rather than developing in strictly rational fashion).
The third reason for thinking ill of lawyers is that they help perpetuate the system, private property relations, and so forth. But on this point, perhaps more blame should be directed against legislatures, not lawyers as such. Do not forget that at the height of socialism in Britain and the New Deal in America, there were still lawyers. Even were private property entirely abolished, lawyers would still have the business of establishing the rights and immunities of their clients in court. For people will continue to injure each other, negligently or intentionally, and so need lawyers (unless tort law is abolished and replaced by a scheme of universal insurance). People will continue to break or underperform on contracts (many, presumably, with complicated provisions), people will continue to mug, kill, rape one another, people will continue to slander one another, divorce one another, injure or imperil each other's rights . . . .
Only a very primitive society could do without lawyers. Or a society just on the other side of revolution, for about fifteen minutes.
And this is because public justice requires that like cases be treated alike. That a case that arises today be treated the same way as a similar case that arose in the past, barring exceptional circumstances. And from this requirement comes the need for written law and for persons well versed in the law.
The fourth reason to think ill of lawyers is that, like priests, they disempower common people. Just as the priest disempowers believers by mediating between them and their god, so the lawyer serves to keep average citizens ignorant of the law. The gods are shrouded in mystification, the law grows distant, arcane . . . . Yet there is great fallacy in this comparison. There simply are no gods, at least not as traditionally conceived. But there can be no doubt as to the law's existence. Moreover, men have no real need of gods, but if they are to have justice they must also have law. And if they are to have a sophisticated society, if they are to live in any way other than as pigs, they will need written laws to organize their relations. And insofar as the law is written, there will be pages of law to study and read. Therefore, a certain class of citizens will always be required to fill this purpose. For not everyone will have the time, let alone the desire, to know the ways of the law . . . . But as for gods, nothing need be written, and therefore nothing need be read
Are there other reasons to despise lawyers?
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