What Do Patrick Henry & Abraham Lincoln Have In Common?

Autodidacts Have Barely A Chance

Perhaps both men would have never become attorneys had they lived today, because of the Legal Trust. I talked about the Legal Trust in my “Bust The Legal Trust”.

I have known about Abraham Lincoln for a while. Today (5/3/2014), I learnt about Patrick Henry here:

“... Henry attended a local school for a few years and received the remainder of his formal education from his father, who had attended King’s College in Aberdeen.

At fifteen Henry began working as a clerk for a local merchant. A year later, in 1752, he and his older brother William opened their own store, which promptly failed.

At age eighteen, not yet having found his profession, Henry married sixteen-year-old Sarah Shelton, whose dowry was a 600-acre farm called Pine Slash, a house, and six slaves. Henry’s first attempt as a planter ended when fire destroyed his house in 1757. After a second attempt at storekeeping proved unsuccessful, Henry helped his father-in-law at Hanover Tavern, across the road from the county courthouse, and began reading law.

By 1760, nearing his twenty-fourth birthday, Henry decided to become a lawyer. Self-taught and barely prepared, Henry persuaded the panel of distinguished Virginia attorneys Wythe and Randolph that he had the intelligence to warrant admission to the bar. ...” (Emphasis added; source)

Absurdly High Barriers To Entry The Legal Profession

For legal disputes to be settled common sense etc. is often more important than overeducated lawyers with fancy theories and armed with trickery and legalese.

Bust The Legal Trust

Trigger

Today (9/18/13) I read following blog post titled “Abolish the Bar Exam” by Allen P. Mendenhall. I have to say he sums up the subject quite well. To some extent, he scratches only the surface, because the negative consequences of the Legal Trust go much further and deeper, I believe.

I have myself occupied my mind with and have researched this subject for some time, but was not yet able to compose a blog post about it.

Definition Of The Legal Trust

Attorneys, prosecutors, and judges have carved out for themselves a nice government sanctioned exclusive monopoly. Together, the legal profession and government established significant barriers to entry into the legal profession.

By the way, the Legal Trust is similar to the Medical Trust. A subject for another blog post.

Summary Of Mendenhall’s Blog Post

Quotes, commentary in bullet points (emphasis added):

1.       “The bar exam is a barrier to entry, as are all forms of professional licensure. Today the federal government regulates thousands of occupations and excludes millions of capable workers from the workforce by means of expensive tests and certifications; likewise various state governments restrict upward mobility and economic progress by mandating that workers obtain costly degrees and undergo routinized assessments that have little to do with the practical, everyday dealings of the professional world.”[This applies to attorneys, prosecutors, and judges as well.]

2.       “The answer harkens back to the Progressive Era when elites used government strings and influence to prevent hardworking and entrepreneurial individuals from climbing the social ladder.”
[I concur!]

3.       “Bar associations began cropping up in the 1870s, but they were, at first, more like professional societies than state-sponsored machines. By 1900, all of that changed, and bar associations became a fraternity of elites opposed to any economic development that might threaten their social status.The elites, who formed the American Bar Association (ABA), … sought to establish a monopoly on the field by forbidding advertising, regulating the “unauthorized” practice of law, restricting legal fees to a designated minimum or maximum, and scaling back contingency fees. The elitist progressives pushing these reforms also forbade qualified women from joining their ranks.”
[I wish the author had provided more timeline.]

4.       “State bars began to rise and spread, but only small percentages of lawyers in any given state were members. The elites were reaching to squeeze some justification out of their blatant discrimination and to strike a delicate balance between exclusivity on the one hand, and an appearance of propriety on the other. They … began to require expensive degrees and education as a prerequisite for bar admission. It was at this time that American law schools proliferated and the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) was created to evaluate the quality of new law schools as well as to hold them to uniform standards.”[I wish the author had provided a timeline.]

5.       “At one time lawyers learned on the job; now law schools were tasked with training new lawyers, but the result was that lawyers’ real training was merely delayed until the date they could practice, and aspiring attorneys had to be wealthy enough to afford this delay if they wanted to practice at all.Entrepreneurial forces attempted to fight back by establishing night schools to ensure a more competitive market, but the various bar associations, backed by the power of the government, simply dictated that law school was not enough: one had to first earn a college degree before entering law school if one were to be admitted to practice. Then two degrees were not enough: one had to pass a restructured, formalized bar exam as well.”[This is a typical vicious Spiral of Government Intervention. I wish the author had provided a timeline. And of course, judges made sure that competition would not arise!]

6.       “In our present era, hardly anyone thinks twice of the magnificent powers exercised and enjoyed by state bar associations, which are unquestionably the most unquestioned monopolies in American history. What other profession than law can claim to be entirely self-regulated? What other profession than law can go to such lengths to exclude new membership and to regulate the industry standards of other professions?”[The author hits the bull’s eye!]

Abraham Lincoln

Had the Legal Trust already existed when young, self-educated Lincoln ventured into law practice after several other career choices, he probably would not have been able to become an attorney at law.

It is unfathomable how many capable people were prevented from becoming an attorney because of the Legal Trust.

Unnecessary Complexity & Costs

Thanks to academic training and academia, laws, regulation, and their interpretation by courts become more and more complex. Legal theories come and go. The common man or woman is probably barely able to comprehend the legal system anymore.

I would also strongly argue that because of the Legal Trust the costs of the legal system in the USA and elsewhere is tremendously higher than need be. With a much simpler legal system and more common sense probably many legal fights would be less protracted and expensive.