Ethics

A little while back there was some blawgosphere discussion about the GAO report that blamed US News & World Report for the increasing cost of law school.  (Since then, we've received news of a report showing that increased costs inhibit  socio-economic and other types of diversity in the profession.)  More precisely, that GAO report said that the law school deans blamed the magazine.  Here's an article arguing that the ABA accreditation standards are a more integral cause of the increasing costs than one might infer from reading just the GAO's parroting of the deans. 

By the way, this op-ed by Martin Greenbaum has been widely circulated.  He argues that the recent economic woes of lawyers are the result of too many law schools and too many new lawyers, that the ABA has failed to use its accreditation power to limit the number of lawyers, and that the federal government ought should either step in or let the AALS exclude new law schools (because, as  Greenbaum mystifyingly argues, the AALS is free of conflicts of interest).  Over at Volokh, Ilya Somin shredded Greenbaum's arguments and analysis.  

In an odd coincidence, last night I was reading a passage in Mark Steiner's book about Abraham Lincoln's law practice, in which Steiner recounted the many complaints of mid-1800s lawyers that they couldn't make enough money because there were too many lawyers.  Steiner reprinted this excerpt from a 1844 ditty by John G. Saxe "on the economics of the legal profession."

Most unfortunate man that I am,

My only client is Grief;

The case is, I've no 'case' at all,

And in brief, I have ne'er had a 'brief.'

The profession's already so full

Of lawyers so full of profession,

That a modest young man like myself

Can't make the smallest impression.

They grant I'm acquainted with 'grants,'

Can devise a 'devise,' or a plea,

Can make a good deal in 'fee simple,'

But I can't get the simplest 'fee.'