Well, you know, two chiefs ago, Chief Justice Burger, used to complain about the low quality of counsel. I used to have just the opposite reaction. I used to be disappointed that so many of the best minds in the country were being devoted to this enterprise.
I mean there’d be a, you know, a defense or public defender from Podunk, you know, and this woman is really brilliant, you know. Why isn’t she out inventing the automobile or, you know, doing something productive for this society?
I mean lawyers, after all, don’t produce anything. They enable other people to produce and to go on with their lives efficiently and in an atmosphere of freedom. That’s important, but it doesn’t put food on the table and there have to be other people who are doing that. And I worry that we are devoting too many of our very best minds to this enterprise.
And they appear here in the Court, I mean, even the ones who will only argue here once and will never come again. I’m usually impressed with how good they are. Sometimes you get one who’s not so good. But, no, by and large I don’t have any complaint about the quality of counsel, except maybe we’re wasting some of our best minds.
Too many lawyers ... that I've heard. But too many BRILLIANT lawyers wasting their significant talents in the law, when they could be using their genius to produce things?
What say ye, my friends, should I go back for my engineering degree ... or just start writing a book?
I wonder what he thinks of Investment Bankers ...
3 comments:
Wow! What a strangely positive and yet negative thing to say, Scalia.
Matt, I think you should stick with the law, so you can help the producers of the world to "go on with their lives efficiently and in an atmosphere of freedom." But you should also write a book or seven, and you should certainly start now.
totally. write a book.
I say go back for your engineering degree - it just makes so much sense!
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