Legal Beagles

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First, Let's Count All the Lawyers

Debunked: The US has 70% of world's lawyers.

The percentage sometimes varies, but the claim stays the same: The United States has too many lawyers. Or at least more than anyone else. Or more per capita than anyone else. Vice President Dan Quayle made this claim during his address to the 1991 annual meeting of the American Bar Association in Atlanta, Georgia: "Does America really need 70 percent of the world's lawyers?" (We presume that he meant the U.S., and did not intend to include Canada, Mexico, and the Central and South Americas in his plaintive query.)

As respondents have pointed out, there are some inherent flaws in any determinination of such a percentage: How is a "lawyer" defined, when comparing practitioners from one country with another? A count of law degrees isn't enough; some countries don't require a law degree for someone to practice what would, in the U.S., be the domain of the J.D. Even in the U.S., just because you have a law degree doesn't mean you are a practicing lawyer. Likewise, you can't just ask about how many people pass the bar exam each year -- many countries don't require any such exam. Finally, numbers simply aren't available for many nations.

It's a number grabbed out of the air for dramatic effect.

References:

• Ray August, "Mythical Kingdom of Lawyers."