Passing the LSAT Forum

[timbs4339]

More JDs does not equal more lawyers or lower client fees for clients in the real world. I do not know what smaller words can be used to explain this to you. All that happens is a bunch of people with expensive JDs working other jobs.

Also, there are plenty of lawyers who do publicly funded, indigent legal work. Legal aid is the most obvious. There are also plenty of pro bono orgs that are funded through combinations of government grants, private charity, and fee shifting stautes. The way to increase the amount of services for indigents is to increase funding for those organizations, not to keep pumping out JDs who immediately flee the law because there are no jobs.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Define "supply" and "demand" in this case though.

Supply = The aggregate of people willing and licensed to provide legal services.
Demand = The aggregate public willingness and ability to pay for legal services.

There are already more lawyers than there are jobs.

Are there? Then why do some studies (if they're to be believed) find that 85% of the civil legal needs of low-income people are not being met? If there were really insufficient jobs, i.e. insufficient legal work to be done, then why does LegalZoom exist? Certainly there are transaction costs and informational barriers to a young out-of-work lawyer who might fill those voids, but there are jobs to be created.

Creating more lawyers isn't going to magically cause them to do the kind of low-cost legal work you want them to provide.

They'll do low-cost work if the alternative is zero income, especially if loan obligations are coming due. Why do you think people do Doc Review jobs?

I think people have mostly responded to this, but are you really saying there must not be enough lawyers because lower income people's needs aren't being met? We know that law schools are pumping out more JDs than there are jobs, and yet there's no magical increase in civil legal aid. It's because there are all kinds of other factors influencing supply and especially demand besides raw number of lawyers, and it seems awfully simplistic to insist more lawyers makes the difference. I mean, the BLS numbers have been quoted elsewhere and make clear that each year law schools graduate something like 2 JDs for every legal job. There isn't remotely a shortage.

[NYSprague]

Campos blog used to have good discussions about supply and demand for lawyers . You should read it.

[Brad Wright]

Campos blog used to have good discussions about supply and demand for lawyers . You should read it.


Good idea NYSprague ^^

[UnicornHunter]

There's also the matter that a lot of legal assistance for low-income types is provided by non-profits (legal aid) and the government (public defenders). The "demand" for these types of lawyers is dictated more by the budgets of said non-profits and governmental offices then by the actual need of people for legal services. These places pay (sometimes literally) nothing, and still are not constrained by the supply of lawyers willing to work for them. I guess you could argue that NGOs/PD offices would be less necessary if there was a greater surplus of general practitioners, but I think you'd probably be overestimating how much the people who need legal services the most can pay for them. I seriously doubt you could cover overhead if you were doing the job of a PD or legal aid lawyer as a solo, never mind cover student loans.