There is a saying that Columbus was said to utter and it went something like this, he said he would take anyone to the new world, but he didn’t want any lawyers. We all know there are probably more lawyer jokes than lawyers. The one which stands out in my mind was one which asked the question what do you call a sinking ship full of lawyers? The answer was a good start. I am not here to pick on lawyers, I worked with some who were fine people and did some very nice things for people and did them for free. Unfortunately a lot of lawyers seem to be out for themselves and the results they go for are in many cases geared more on making a quick buck than helping their clients. Could there be something wrong in the way lawyers are taught to think? Maybe more of a certain type of person is drawn to the profession of law and that is the problem with a lot of lawyers.

If we look at our law makers in the Senate and House we can all see how useless they are. The only things they can agree on are passing laws to help the fat cats with the most generous lobbies. In 2014 a study was done which noted out of 100 senators 53 were lawyers and out of 435 representatives in the house there were 169 lawyers. Why are so many lawyers drawn to these posts? Could it be the reason the house and senate can’t get anything done is this heavy concentration of lawyers, each one trying to win “his or her case”? Did you ever wonder how many presidents were lawyers? The answer is out of 44 presidents 25 were lawyers. Could this be why this country is in so much trouble? Should we stay away from electing lawyer presidents, after all more than half have been lawyers and look where we are?

Politicians believe a strong legal profession allows those lawyers to make many contacts. In a way they have an exclusive club known as the bar association where lawyers meet. Winning lawyers get a good reputation and some become very well-known, which certainly doesn’t hurt them when they run for office since they will already have some sort of recognition before they start. It is more than that however and it might be even more important to examine who their contacts are since getting elected requires financial backing. Many lawyers have this since they have powerful and rich contacts. A successful lawyer usually has mastered the skill of oratory. They can speak very well in front of the cameras and in front of crowds and they know what to say and what not to, which would be a big advantage over a non-lawyer. I think the best illustration of this is the race for president between Trump and Clinton. Clinton is a lawyer and Trump is not.

The strange thing in my eyes is the fact how fast lawyers got into the presidency of the United States. The second president, John Adams was not only a gentlemen farmer but a lawyer. The following is a list of U.S. Presidents who were lawyers”
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, James Polk, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama.

Some were memorable and many were not. One has to wonder if Lincoln would have achieved any fame if it were not for the Civil War. The point here is it is never too good to have one profession dominate politics and this is what has happened. If bankers were the dominate profession would things be different than they are now? I believe so and probably not for the better. Each profession has an idea of what is best for them and if this would have been a country with a one party system then there probably wouldn’t have been the log jam in passing laws since the lawyers would all have wanted the same thing. I am not saying this would be better for us, but better for them.

One cannot help but notice that many of the politicians who enter office are not that well off, but after a few years in government many become rich. How is this accomplished on their salaries? The answer is simple it isn’t. They have made it possible to avoid punishment for doing things we would go to jail for such as insider stock trading. It is hard to believe, but congress has exempted itself from laws against insider stock trading which is a boon to the members since they often know things ahead of time which affect the market. This is nothing new. In 1938 congress exempted itself from the Fair Labor Standards Act which deprived its employees, not the congressmen, of the 40 hour workweek, time and one half for overtime and other protections. In 1964 President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act which protected Americans from employment discrimination and congress quickly exempted itself from it. When Bob Packwood the former senator resigned under threat of expulsion for alleged sexual harassment of female employees, the women had no recourse, because the senate was protected from this sort of thing, they had seen to that.

The congress has exempted itself from many different laws which we are all subject too. I can’t help it, but when I hear about being exempt from laws, I think of lawyers, what do you think of? Can’t you just see it now, a smoky back room full of politicians, many of them lawyers advising everyone they should exempt themselves from certain laws? Why should these people be treated different than the rest of us and be allowed to create personal fortunes by means which would mean a criminal prosecution for the rest of us if we used the same methods? Is it no wonder most of us think the congress is corrupt? When you exempt yourself from these laws do you have any moral standards left? It must be relatively easy for these people to avoid ethics in their decisions, because it seems they have been doing it for years. With them it seems to be don’t do as I do, but do as I say. The ship that is sinking is the U.S. and it is not just full of lawyer it is full of us and the lawyers are the crew which are steering it.