[Atropos]

That is true but not because of the "lawyer monopoly" because of the bar requirement. Google has their own legal department and if required they could easily find a 50$/hour attorney to file everything they write in court...

In my opinion the real reason is that some areas of law like patent litigation require highly specialiced knowledge that is almost impossible to acquire outside of a few special firms. An unexperienced law school graduate trying to do patent litigation would be like a med school graduate trying to do brain surgery - it just isn't feasible without years of additional training by someone who is already an expert in the field. But while after medical school this is provided by the residency programs at hospitals, all that exists for lawyers is starting as an associate at specialized for-profit biglaw firms - who have no interest in "teaching" as many people as possible, but raher in maximizing their billing rates...