First Thing We Do, Let's Deregulate All the Lawyers

Not many Americans think of the legal profession as a monopoly, but it is. Abraham Lincoln, who practiced law for nearly twenty-five years, would likely not have been allowed to practice today. Without a law degree from an American Bar Association?sanctioned institution, a would-be lawyer is allowed to practice law in only a few states. ABA regulations also prevent even licensed lawyers who work for firms that are not owned and managed by lawyers from providing legal services. At the same time, a slate of government policies has increased the demand for lawyers' services. Basic economics suggests that those entry barriers and restrictions combined with government-induced demand for lawyers will continue to drive the price of legal services even higher.

Clifford Winston, Robert Crandall, and Vikram Maheshri argue that these increasedcosts cannot be economically justified. They create significant social costs, hamperinnovation, misallocate the nation's labor resources, and create socially perverse incentives. In the end, attorneys support inefficient policies that preserve and enhancetheir own wealth, to the detriment of the general population.

To fix this situation, the authors propose a novel solution: deregulation of the legalprofession. Lowering the barriers to entry will force lawyers to compete moreintensely with each other and to face competition from nonlawyers and firms thatare not owned and managed by lawyers. The book provides a much-needed analysisof why legal costs are so high and how they can be reduced without sacrificing thequality of legal services.

Clifford Winston is a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution Economic Studiesprogram. Robert W. Crandall is a nonresident senior fellow in Economic Studies atBrookings. Vikram Maheshri is an assistant professor at the University of Houston.