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Unpleasant truths behind the 'myth'.

Article Excerpt
THE LAWYER MYTH: A Defense of the American Legal Profession

by Rennard Strickland and Frank T. Read

152 pages; Swallow Press, 2008

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In 1999, a book entitled Approaching the Qur'an: the Early Revelations was published. I would never have heard about it except that, in 2002, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill selected the book as its summer reading assignment for incoming freshmen. It was a controversial choice, to say the least. Among other criticisms, those who found it a poor selection noted that the author included none of the passages calling for violence against infidels. If you read only that book, you would think that Islam was untainted by the spilling of blood.

Just as Approaching the Qur'an white-washed Islam, so The Lawyer Myth white-washes the legal profession. Authors Rennard Strickland and Frank Read, both law school deans, announce, as in the movie Network, that they are "mad as hell and won't take it any longer." What they're mad about is the opprobrium that is so often dished out to their profession. Not just the lawyer jokes, but the public perception that lawyers are mostly leeches who manipulate the system to live well at the expense of everyone else. And they are especially angry at commentators and politicians who try to score points with gullible, misinformed people by pushing for reforms in the legal system.

To hear Strickland and Read tell it, the legal profession has been viciously and unfairly attacked. Lawyers are not leeches; they do great things. They deserve to be held in the highest regard, not...

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