[udpheaders]

For many a sensible person, lawyers seem to be more a liability than an asset. Rightly so. Indeed they are more often than not rent-seekers, and the rent is sky high. That is, until you are faced with a serious problem.

Imagine you are falsely accused and facing charges that could land you in some maximum security prison, sitting on death row. Or, even worse, imagine you get caught downloading too many JSTOR articles in a university library. Then, lawyers don't seem like rent seekers. They are an asset, not a liability. And you need one. Or two. Or a whole team of them. You can't have too many. The more the merrier.

As with anything else in life, context is relevant.

[rayiner]

"More often than not?" The article says that there are 40% more lawyers than the optimal number. Thus taking the article at face value, at most 30% of lawyers are more of a liability than an asset. Under the model of the article, decreases the number of lawyers beyond that level would decrease GDP.

[udpheaders]

I'm surprised you would actually take the statistics seriously. At face value, the article is pure entertainment. I would not consider an evaluation of a lawyer as a liability or an asset to be something that can be measured objectively. Every client is different and every client's situation is different. And it is the client who ultiimately decides whether the services are an asset or a liability, and no one else. My opinion is that lawyers do not add anything to the client's bottom line (but it doesn't matter what I think, only what the client thinks). In my view, lawyers function to limit the costs of the client's activities to the client (while at the same time adding to the client's costs themselves with legal fees). In other words, they operate to try to minimize the client's losses, to limit the client's liabilities. But we often have no evidence that such losses would have occurred absent the lawyers' involvement. We resort to speculation. Unfortunatley, lawyers play on fears to generate business. But there are some situations where this is not necessary, because the fears come from a real situation not a hypothetical. In these situations, there is a real, measurable risk of loss.

That's why I gave the (extreme) example of facing criminal charges. That's a situation where the losses seem quite imminent. The chance of serious losses is real and the accompanying fears are justified. I would argue society needs enough lawyers to handle those types of situations. Clients with serious problems where loss is imminent. But beyond that, it gets very subjective and very speculative. Needless to say, lawyers are very good at arguing the need for their existence and for their value to the client.

Whether it's 40% more than we needed in 1994, more than that or some lesser percentage, is anyone's guess. We all know it's too many. You don't need to conduct a study to see that.

[rayiner]

If you think lawyers don't add to the client's bottom line, why are the Chinese rushing to develop their legal systems along western models? Why is the maturity of the legal system included in every international ranking of nations' desirability as a location to do business? Is it all just fear?

Lawyers are the dispute resolution mechanism that allows an economy full of people trying to screw each other (and trust me, as long as economies are full of people, they will be trying to screw each other) to work. The article is based on the reasonable premise that a bigger dispute resolution system contributes to GDP to a point, then starts hurting the economy beyond a certain point.

Note bene: you say "in 1994" as if we should assume the problem has been getting worse over time, but in reality the size of the legal sector as a %-age of real GDP has been decreasing since it peaked in the late 1980's: http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/.a/6a00e55044cbaf883401543574d...

[udpheaders]

"as if we should assume"

Whoa. Where are you getting that?

I will let the @strawman take it from here. Because that's who I think you are trying to argue with. :)

[rayiner]

Before your ninja edit, you had a "(in 1994!)." The exclamation point implied that it may be more than 40% today.

Also, your argument is the strawman:

> My opinion is that lawyers do not add anything to the client's bottom line (but it doesn't matter what I think, only what the client thinks).

> But beyond that, it gets very subjective and very speculative. Needless to say, lawyers are very good at arguing the need for their existence and for their value to the client.

It was an economist, not a lawyer, who made the case for the value of lawyers to the economy.

[udpheaders]

"the exclamation point implied"

Well, if it did it wasn't intentional.

I am always editing. It's just how I write. HN faux pas I guess.

I'm not sure I follow the rest of your comment.

I was not suggesting the author of the article was arguing for the value of lawyers, I was saying that as a general statement. (And not that it proves anything but in this very thread we have a lawyer - you - arguing in favor of lawyers.)

It may be I'm just too stupid to undertand whatever else you are trying to show me with your quotes. But it does seem like you are reading things into my words and coming up with your own interpretation which, alas, does not match my intent.