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Lawyers are destroying the American economy.  The same way Seamless Web expands associate asses, the legal industry is expanding by putting on nothing but pure fat.

PhilaLawyer recently wrote this excellent piece about the Fattened Middle.  The Fattened Middle are generally middle and upper-middle class white collar workers (with a few lower-middles and lower-uppers in the mix) that don’t really contribute anything in their jobs, but constitute a huge portion of our economy.

They’re the HR personnel, middle managers, and people with titles like “senior computer analyst” who can never adequately explain what it is they do at their job.

Well, look, I already told you. I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don’t have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can’t you understand that?! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!

Their lives primarily consist of planning meetings to discuss plans to plan for a pre-meeting to the main meeting, and moving papers from one desk to another, or if they’re really effective in their jobs, moving papers from several desks to an even larger number of desks.

SERVE:

RE: ACME Co. Release

From: _______@______.com (Me)

To: bcarter@_____.com

Bob,

Here’s the release in the ACME matter. Let me know if this is OK.

RETURN:

RE: RE: ACME Co. Release

From: bcarter@____.com

To: ________@_______.com

Has Tim Perkins OK’d this? He’s got final say on these matters.

VOLLEY:

FW: RE: RE: ACME Co. Release

From: ________@______.com

To: tperkins@____.com

Tim,

Bob tells me you have final say on the release in the ACME case. Tell me if this is OK. We are obligated under court order to finalize it by Monday.

Thanks,

_________

- – – – – – – – – – – – – -

RE: FW: RE: RE: ACME Co. Release

From: tperkins@_____.com

To: ________@________.com

Actually, this release involves possible tax issues. Best to run this past Katherine.

- – – – – – – – – – – – – -

RE: RE: FW: RE: RE: ACME Co. Release

From: ________@_______.com

To: tperkins@____.com; bcarter@____.com

CC: korourke@_____.com

Tim/Bob,

I’ve already had this blessed by Katherine. So if its good with you two, its ready to go.

Let me know.

- – – – – – – – – – – – – – -

RE: RE: RE: RE: FW: RE: ACME Co. Release

From: bcarter@____.com

To: _____@_____.com; tperkins@____.com; _______@______.com

Tim,

Are you good with this?

- – – – – – – – – – – – – – – -

RE: RE: RE: RE: FW: RE: ACME Co. Release

From: tperkins@____.com

To: bcarter@_____.com; ______@_____.com; korourke@_____.com;

______@_______.com

We’ve all seen this sort of nonsense.  Even if your job is not a completely unproductive waste, dealing with the system will still eat up a lot of your time.  And sure, sometimes a few of these jobs need to exist.  You need people in payroll, but payroll shouldn’t be so big that you have a separate person who serves only as the payroll supervisor, who then needs a secretary, which creates more need for people in HR, which in turn creates even more need for people in the payroll department.  All these departments are connected, and the growth of one spirals upward into the growth of the others.  We might call this job growth, but it’s not economic growth.  Except for the people who handle HR and payroll for the tip top managers and the guys at the bottom doing substantive work, these people produce nothing.  Yet, they’re probably the biggest sector of our economy.  No wonder we’re going in the toilet.

The legal industry is headed the same way.  Fluster Cucked has provided some excellent stats on the number of lawyers per capita over the years.  No surprise, it’s skyrocketing.  In 1963 there was 1 lawyer for every 491 people.  In 2009 there was 1 lawyer for every 174 people.  While the lawyers per capita has nearly tripled, has the demand for lawyers also gone up?

Okay, not a fair question.  Let me try again.  …The present economic meltdown aside, has the demand for lawyers gone up as fast as the number?  The answer is, surprisingly, yes.  The reason is increased regulation.  As much as you’ll hear about how de-regulated Wall St. is, regulations keep getting stacked up and up and up.  Increased regulation happens every time three or more Congressmen are in the same room for more than twenty minutes.  Deregulation is extremely rare.  And, all these new regulations mean more lawyers are needed to help clients navigate them.

So what’s the problem?

This is the same inorganic, contrived job growth that we see with middle managers.  There isn’t an increased need for the typical roles for lawyers, like criminal defense, or writing wills.  The increased demand is purely a creature of our own making.  Interpreting environmental regulations and filing paperwork with the SEC does result in job growth for lawyers.  But, it does not translate into economic growth for our country.

We may be increasing the number of jobs there are, but we’re not increasing what we produce.  All that’s changed is it now takes more people to produce the exact same thing.  The rise of regulatory lawyers, like the rise of the fattened middle, is an almost certain sign that our economy has a lot further into the toilet to go.  Look out U-bend, here we come.

Cabbie Goess Off Meter
[WFAA]

After a cab ride full of arguments over directions, cab driver Larry Darnell Miles, got out of the driver’s seen, opened the passenger door, and stabbed Eason Pryce Maykus in the neck with a knife.

Police found an empty bottle of gin, an empty 240z can, and a full bottle of gin inside the van.  Really makes you appreciate NY cab drivers.  All you need to get by there is the magic phrase, kaifa haloka sadiqi, and all is good.

The Call is Coming From Inside the Admissions Department!
[Legal Profession Blog]

After a spate of anonymous angry calls to the University of Michigan School of Law admissions department, “Dean Z.” posted a warning to callers:

We know who you are. If you want to be anonymous, you’re going to need to invest in call-blocking technology.

Makes you wonder just what is going on at Michigan that is causing so many angry calls.  Also makes you wonder who is dumb enough to think the school wouldn’t have caller ID.  Your cell phone may not register, but it would still show the number, and they can check it against their records.

If the school doesn’t bump the callers for their anonymous venting, they should bump them for being too stupid to protect their anonymity.

Dusquesne Professor Passed Over for Promotion, Sues
[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

Vanessa Browne-Barbour is suing Dusquesne Law after being passed over for position as dean.  The person who got the job, Ken Gormley, is a white man.  Browne-Barbour is a black woman.  She is claiming she wasn’t considered because of her race and gender.  Though Browne-Barbour is only an associate professor, she claims she is more qualified for the position, than Gormley, a full professor, because she has formerly served as an associate dean.

Hm…  She was once an associate dean, and is still merely an associate professor?  Something tells me she wasn’t considered for the deanship because she sucked in her previous job.

83% of Firms Won’t Say if They’re Outsourcing
[ABA Journal]

Fronterion, a Chicago-based outsourcing consulting firm conducted a survey of law firms regarding outsourcing of legal work.  Of the 30 firms that responded to the survey, 83% would not comment on their outsourcing policy.  I think we can safely assume that responses like “We consider the information you are requesting to be proprietary” are a good indication that the firm is either currently outsourcing work, or is planning to outsource, and know it will look bad to say “No outsourcing” only a year later to say “No comment.”

But how bad is outsourcing anyways?  You will need to disclose it to the client, but you can probably draft your engagement letter to include outsourcing.  When you hire a big law firm, you know that the partner you talked to isn’t doing most of the work, it’s being handed down the line.  Is it such a big deal if that line goes out of the law firm, so long as the same partner who reviews associates’ work reviews outsourced work?

Outsourcing may even make legal practice cheaper and more efficient.  Why pay pay $300 for a first year associate in NY to read up on the E-SIGN law, when the firm could hire a boutique firm specializing in cyberlaw out of Piedmont, NC for a fraction of the price?  It’s basically just subcontracting, and so long as they’re subcontracting to firms within the US, this would open up huge opportunities to solo practices and boutiques.