Justice Scalia: We've Got Too Many Lawyers

Hard to disagree with the smartest guy on the Supreme Court:

“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 … 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.”

While lawyers undoubtedly contribute to keeping an ordered society, they also add billions of dollars to the cost of everything we buy because of silly product liability suits and personal injury actions. A little tort reform would go a long way to fixing that, and maybe some of those brilliant minds would find other brilliant things to do.