Lawyers

I cannot say strongly enough that Rob Gaudet is a thoughtful, public spirited individual, entitled to our respect, and he has shown a class action spirit in rising to the defense of his profession. Since in a lawsuit one party wins, the other loses, about half of the people involved are disgruntled and blame lawyers. This disadvantage is inherent in their profession. Shakespeare is often quoted. "First, well will get rid of the lawyers". In fact, Shakespeare put those words into the mouth of a revolutionary haranguing a mob and appealing to its inherent lawlessness.

Most of us have had some brush with lawyers. Here is mine. At Stanford I was asked to found the Latin American program. I started a course titled "The Hispanic World". For the research conducted by the institute I founded I established a modest journal called the Hispanic World Report. I got a nasty letter from a New York law firm saying that the title infringed on the copyright title of U.S. News & World Report. This was as silly as the failed attempt ot Who's Who in America to copyright the expression "Who's Who". My modest journal was probably unknown to the majority of the Stanford faculty. How did a New York law firm know about it? It must have had a whole network of spies looking for trouble. The university did not want to get involved in a lawsuit, so I changed the name of the journal to Hispanic American Report, and as such it was to become internationally well-known. The law firm could report its successful action and bill its client for x number of hours. Easy money!

This brings us to the WAIS question: What is the international reputation of lawyers? It must vary from country to country. In England they are divided into barristers, who appear at the bar, and solicitors, who do the office work. They presumably "solicit" cases, i.e.look for trouble, but my recollection is that they were well regarded. Most American lawyers are really "solicitors". In Palo Alto, for example, there are hundreds of lawyers, but only a few appear in court. There are also regional differences. In France the Normands are supposedly the most prone to start lawsuits. In Spanish-speaking countries, a lawyer is a "licenciado". In fact, many people study law as preparation for a wide variety of careers. What about other countries, Germany, Russia, etc?