Lawyers Are Ruining America

Top five reforms that can really improve our country
(And get us past the empty political rhetoric.)

Premise: Generalizations are always problematic, but lawyers as a class of professional are a highly disorganized group of individuals whose livelihoods thrive on chaos and disruption. Few professions get paid so much for doing little more than stirring up trouble and never finishing things. When business is slow, they just make new trouble to feed their checkbooks. "Good guys" and "bad guys" are relative in this profession, because the good guys make money when the bad guys are bad.

What happens when a lawyer becomes a politician, or is appointed to run a government agency? This person is not like an engineer who builds things, or a doctor who heals things, or a teacher who nurtures things. Attorneys in government make a mess. Look at politics and government today, it is overrun with attorneys.

Here’s the problem. Besides the fact that most attorneys are not qualified to build, run, nurture or fix things, they are too often appointed to oversee government agencies with big budgets. So they do what comes naturally, they appoint their cronies and reward each other for their loyalty (wink, wink, nod, nod)… rather than build, run, nurture or fix things.

An endemic problem plaguing American public life is the sheer number of attorneys who have ensconced themselves in positions for which they are not qualified or suited ethically.

An attorney is a licensed officer of the court whose job is to interpret and apply the law constitutionally. By contrast, the legislature makes the laws, and the executive carries out the laws.

These functions are intended to be a check and balance against abuses of any one branch.

The seminal ethical question is what happens when a licensed attorney is placed “across the divide” into the legislative or executive branches? That is, when the attorney becomes a politician or is appointed to run a government agency?

A conflict of interest occurs.

If a politician, the attorney can influence the very laws he/she can then also interpret (self-servingly) as an attorney.

If an agency head, the attorney can spend the money of the agency whose budget is dictated from the legislature where his fellow attorney-politicians are making (self-servingly) the laws that provide him/her the money to spend (self-servingly) with other attorneys as thank-you’s for favors all around.

All in all, many an attorneys’ pockets are lined, but nothing was built, run, nurtured or fixed.

This dynamic has overrun American public life and is ruining us.

Therefore, the following reforms are proposed to create a more vibrant and effective public life in America.

1. Attorney Conflicts: Prohibit attorneys from holding public office or running government agencies; since such positions are in conflict with their licenses as officers of the court;
2. Agency Competency: Require professional competency before appointments to government agencies; similar to those required in other professions;
3. Geographic Diversity: Disperse federal government agencies to cities across America other than the major metropolitan areas (out of Washington D.C.);
4. Attorney Discipline: Place a majority of laypeople (“average persons on the street”) on attorney disciplinary councils; require Rule 11 sanctions hearings at the inception of a lawsuit with the disciplinary council able to overrule the judge; AND
5. Small Business Incentivization: Require 20% of a state’s budget for goods and services to be spent on contractors and vendors with less than 50 employees whose headquarters is located within the state; require 10% of a state's budget for goods and services to be spent on contractors and vendors with less than 10 employees.

Here are a few of the benefits of each proposal:

1. Removes the endemic conflicts of interest currently plaguing government and make way for higher competency and skill for people who know how to build, run, nurture and fix things.
2. Helps insure that people who know how to build, run, nurture and fix things become the leaders of our public life.
3. Dramatically reduces the costs of running the federal government by placing the agencies in parts of the country where the cost of living is less and the temptations to form political alliances between agencies and decision influenciers is lessened and at least made more difficult due to simply proximity.
4. Places more practically-minded people who know how to build, run, nurture and fix things in charge of getting rid of the dead wood that currently plagues the legal profession.
5. Forces state agencies to do what they should do, but don't. This will empower the small business engine across the country; people who know how to build, run, nurture and fix things.

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