Allowing Non-Doctors To Perform Surgery

When I see articles about allowing non-lawyers to practice law (like this one) it really frosts me.  The reasons that they cite for their proposition include lowering cost for "legal services" and increasing the number of jobs because more people would be "legal providers".  The article also mentions that Clarence Darrow and Abraham Lincoln did not go to law school - seeming in support of law school being irrelevant. 

It seems to me that the reasoning that the article advocates could be applied equally well to other regulated professions such as medicine and engineering.  For example, why require surgeons to have gone to medical school or be licensed doctors?  It would be cheaper if anyone could just perform surgery without going to medical school - it would also create more jobs because more people would be "medical providers", right?  Also, why require engineering school for people designing bridges?  It would be a lot cheaper if anyone was allowed to do it, right?  The medical and engineering fields have also be "operated as a monopoly" like the legal field, right?

Inching In The Right Direction

It's been a few weeks since I last posted - but that's actually good news for the younger set.  Frankly, the busier practicing lawyers are, the more likely they are to hire younger lawyers to take some of the load off - and it seems like the majority (although not all) of law firms are continuing to inch back from the recent decline in business.  (Note -  it is "inching", not "leaps and bounds".)

Don't get me wrong, going to law school is still not a good idea right now due to the mismatch in terms of number of graduating lawyers and number of jobs available (even the WSJ admits that the legal field is the MOST difficult for placement of any field - with fewer than one job opening per 100 people employed in the field).  However, job placement odds for those graduating in spring 2012 are likely to be slightly better than 2011.