Lawyers vs Physicians

There is an interesting article in the NY Times regarding lawyers. Namely lawyers, those just out of school, first year associates, frankly know nothing. Yet the client often pays the $300 per hour to train that person. Now a physician straight out of medical school spends four more years in hands on training before they get the chance to do anything. The classic "Intern" is in many cases replaced by Resident and a first years Resident is often as deadly as some diseases. They do not know their way around the hospital etc but the system accounts for that by having layers of oversight. And the pay is horrible and you are billed for the Attending not the Resident.

Lawyers are different. You are billed for everything. Let's try writing a contract. Now many business people know more about contracts than attorneys, why, because they have lived through the bad ones. A first year associate would be clueless.

Take a will, in most cases a cut and paste. Yet some firms I have seen will spell the clients name different ways on the same page and get gender mixed even as often. If that is the case what else have they messed up on?

The Times states:

“The fundamental issue is that law schools are producing people who are not capable of being counselors,” says ...., the general counsel of FMC Technologies, a Houston company that makes oil drilling equipment. “They are lawyers in the sense that they have law degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.” 

The simple task of filing a lawsuit, a will, of finding the right window in the Courthouse and getting the right form comes only from experience. Most often a law school grad is clueless of even where the Court House is no less understanding the difference between them.

Imagine a physician not knowing where to insert the needles to withdraw blood, it is at that level. Is that a bad thing, not really if the law firm takes upon itself the burden of training the apprentice. Low pay commensurate to say an Intern. But that has often not been the case, first year stars were getting almost $200,000 pa on Wall Street before the collapse.

Law often is learned by doing. Writing a contract, writing a brief, filing a law suit, deposing a witness, crossing a witness, and the reading of depositions. Done by doing, so does this mean that perhaps law school grads should go through a system akin to physicians, low pay for say four years, and not be charging clients. Perhaps it is worth considering, equity after all.