That seems amazing to me now. I suspect that I may have fallen, myself, into one of those Black Holes of Confident Ignorance. The fact is, when you start asking what it means to be a lawyer, you hear some peculiar answers, and you might like to ponder them before charting your future.
Defining the Legal "Profession"
As they say, law and medicine are the classical, "learned'1 professions, where "learned" is pronounced alearned, the old-fashioned way. I was delighted to be a member of this honoured fraternity. Moreover, I accepted this definition of myself, at least for a while:
The commonly agreed-upon ingredients of a profession are twofold: (1) Membership [requires special] educational and licensure.... (2) Professions have the power of self-regulation. Thus, law, medicine, theology, and accounting ... are professions. But business, journalism and food preparation are not.
Maybe if I had left law school with a wealth of useful skills and knowledge, I would have been proud to believe that definition for the rest of my career. But it just didn't fit, and I became more aware of that as time went by.
I know it's nice, if you're a lawyer, to think that the only "real" professions are law and medicine, but that you can be generous and let your accountant friends believe that they're professionals too. But the truth is, I've known actuaries and financial analysts, and sometimes their entrance exams are tougher than the bar exams, license or no license.
Then there's the whole second half of that attorney's definition, which requires "self-regulation." I understand what it means. It means that professionals themselves get to decide who's admitted into the profession. But why should that be part of the definition? Here's a clue:
[Professions are set off from other occupations by the requirement that they be relatively independent of control by laymen who, by definition, do not have the requisite training and skills to judge the work of professionals.313
Now, that's an interesting thought. If you're a professional, they seem to be saying, and then you have to be self-regulated. Laymen won't know whether you're doing your job properly. Only professionals will be able to tell.
Right?
Well, then, consider the example of your attorney. You go with her into the courtroom. She says some things to the judge and the other attorney. They all talk back and forth. After a while, you space out, and you remain that way until your attorney nudges you and says, Psst - let's go." You go out into the hallway and say to your attorney, "Please tell me what happened. I did catch the part about life imprisonment, but, you know, I'm only a layman, so by definition I lack the skills to judge your work."
Right?
I'm sorry, folks, but it makes me punchy to talk too long about this concept that a layman can't figure out what a professional is doing. I agree that when the professional goes into the details and starts talking about camshafts and compression motions, appellate review - and - I mean well, when s/he starts talking that way, you might lose track.
But in the end, any moron can take one look and yell, "Hey - this is not my car!"
What can I say? I have my doubts. God did not reach down and touch me with His finger when I entered Columbia Law School. I was still more or less me. What I learned about the practical side of law, for the most part, did not come from law school, but from experience.
up with this beauty:
[A profession is an] occupation whose members have special privileges, such as exclusive licensing, that are justified by the following assumptions:
- That the client's trust presupposes that ... self-interest is overbalanced by devotion to. Serving both the client's interest and the public good, and
- That the occupation is self-regulating - that is, organized in such a way as to assure the public and the courts that its members are competent, do not violate their client's trust and transcend their own self-interest.
