We've all heard them time and time again: Lawyer jokes. We all know at least one, if not dozens. Here's one of my favorites:
Q: What's the difference between a lawyer and a herd of buffalo?
A: The lawyer charges more.
Yes, it's easy to poke fun of lawyers, for any number of reasons; the common (though widely false) belief that lawyers "lie" to earn their living, that they defend criminals, that they earn too much money, and that they don't deserve how much they earn. These last two points I'd like to touch on briefly, first: Lawyers earn what the market has determined they can earn; in other words, if you're one of the best lawyers in the country, and people are willing to pay you $800 an hour for your services, then that's what you should make. I don't see anybody complaining about how much doctors and surgeons make (which is comparatively MUCH higher for FAR fewer hours of actual work), although this is one of the main reasons many of us (read:me) can't afford health insurance and millions of Americans go without it. Yet, do you see people protesting doctors' salaries, or making ridiculous jokes about how much doctors earn? No, because among other reasons, people simply feel like doctors "deserve it" - yet, somehow, lawyers don't. I am sure you would feel differently about how much your lawyer earned if he successfully kept you out of jail, or from being sued. And, for the record, most lawyers don't earn NEARLY as much as people think they do - the national average is somewhere between $45k and $80k, depending on which figures you choose.
But why does the world need more lawyers? Because, simply, lawyers (or at least good lawyers) are skeptics; we are trained not to take everything people tell us as true, and to question every statement given to us. Lawyers are trained in the Socratic method, named, of course, after Socrates, a man who lived (and died) to question the status quo and challenged people to reevaluate themselves and their beliefs. I think too often we are numbed into taking everything people tell us as true, simply because it is easier than digging deep to uncover the truth for ourselves. That is truly a shame, because I believe 99% of what people tell you is complete B.S. And it doesn't matter who is feeding you the b.s. - the President, your clergy, your mother - you still owe yourself the right to figure out the truth on your own. Think of all the things human beings have done based on the assumptions that were handed down to us by others: the Crusades, the Inquisition, 9/11, the War in Iraq; do you think if the people who were being handed these instructions were intelligent enough to question them and brave enough to challenge them, that any of these events could have happened?
Well, that's just what we lawyers do: we are constantly questioning, challenging the norm, and reevaluating our culture and our legal system in light of what we find.
Remember that next time somebody makes a lawyer joke.
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