How to curb your legal bills

LAWYERS are less than 1% of American adults, but they are well-represented in government. Both the president and the vice-president trained as lawyers. So did 55% of senators and 100% of Supreme Court justices. There are advantages to having a bit of legal expertise among those who write and execute the nation's laws, or assess their constitutionality. But there is also a potential conflict of interest. If florists had such a lock on the levers of power, you might expect subsidies for weddings, a campaign to beautify cities and the addition of Godmothers' Day, Aunts' Day and Librarians' Day to the calendar. Lawyers, alas, are no more selfless.

The American legal system is the most lawyer-friendly on Earth. It is head-thumpingly complex. The regulations that accompany the Dodd-Frank law governing Wall Street, for example, are already more than 3m words long—and not yet half-written. Companies must hire costly lawyers to guide them through a maze created by other lawyers. They must also hire lawyers to defend themselves against attacks by other lawyers on a playing field built by lawyers. The cost—roughly $800 a year for every American—is passed on to consumers. The benefits are hard to detect. Americans are probably no less likely to be injured or cheated than the citizens of countries that spend a fraction as much.

So it is hard to muster sympathy for lawyers facing a tighter labour market. America's 250 biggest law firms shed more than 9500 people, nearly 8% of the total, in 2009-10. Law students are struggling to find the lavishly paid work they expected after graduation. One big law firm even went bust (see article). None of this is nice for the people concerned, especially those with large student debts. But a squeeze was long overdue. The recession forced corporate America to look hard for savings, and the people who were being paid hundreds of dollars an hour to nitpick were an obvious target. Some lawyering requires exceptional skills and deserves high pay. But law firms were often charging stiff rates for routine work done by trainees. Clients are right to demand better value for money. Law firms can increasingly oblige them with the help of technology and globalisation.

Lawyer, meet my accountant

Companies are insisting that their lawyers outsource basic or repetitive tasks. They are pressing them to use software, rather than expensive eyes, in the collection of vast amounts of information for anyone who files a semi-plausible suit. They are asking for flat or capped rather than hourly fees. American lawyers are not the only ones recalculating their bills. London firms with a global spread are also facing competition and more demanding clients. Firms at the cheaper end of the British market nervously await liberalisation at home.

Yet no one should underestimate lawyers' ability to adapt. In America members of the plaintiffs' bar search constantly for ingenious ways to make whoever has the deepest pockets pay for whatever goes wrong. That benefits defence lawyers too, because firms facing ingenious assailants need ingenious protectors. It will take more than market forces to make the system fairer for non-lawyers. America needs fewer and simpler laws, and stricter curbs on frivolous suits and outlandish damages. Curiously, its leaders are in no rush for reform.