By GODFREY HARRIS

There is a reason the American legal system provides so much fodder for humor the jokes ring true. Consider these three:

“A small town that cannot support one lawyer can always support two.”

“Lawyers write a 10,000-word document and call it a brief.”

“The judicial process is like a cow. The public is impaled on its horns, the government has it by the tail and the lawyers are milking it.”

Most Californians don’t realize the complete control that lawyers have come to exercise over the legal system in this state. All potential lawyers attend law schools run by lawyers, and qualify to practice law by taking virtually the same courses to pass the same tests that are taught, written, and scored by other California lawyers. As a result of this virtual monopoly, all lawyers in the state operate their practices in essentially the same way with the same goals, the same expectations and the same exaggerated view of their value to their fellow citizens.

Nationally, all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, ever since the committee was first formed, have been lawyers. All members of the Supreme Court and all federal judges are lawyers, even though a philosopher, a doctor, a scientist or a theologian might provide a more balanced view of society’s needs. All professional litigators appearing in federal, state and local courts are lawyers. A majority of federal and state legislators devising laws, approving judicial appointments and setting judicial salaries are lawyers.

Can you name another profession in California that has gained such complete control over its work, income and standards? None, as far as we have been able to discover not architects, not engineers, not even doctors. Lawyers have not only managed to clamp a tight grip on our legal system, they have made a self-serving slogan into a truism through their insistent adherence to precedents, their specialized vocabulary and their arcane procedural rules: “The defendant who pleads his own case has a fool for a client.”

Monopoly practice

Long ago barbers transformed themselves into surgeons and printers became publishers all in the interest of realizing a greater profit from essentially the same basic services they always provided. The only difference with lawyers today is that they built a monopoly in the process. As a result, they can be more concerned about making money than finding justice. Lawyers charge too much because they control a closed system that deters real competition in conflict resolution, property protection and the maintenance of individual rights.

Here are just two examples of the role money plays in legal matters:

A giant Chicago law firm habitually mailed our Los Angeles-based company a one-page report on the progress of a bankruptcy accompanied by a 30-page listing of everyone receiving the report. The law firm, it seemed, had created a captive company to provide mailing services for the cost of the work plus a fixed profit percentage the bigger the package and the heavier the mailing, the higher the cost and therefore the greater the profit to the law firm’s partners. The bankruptcy judge routinely approved these exercises in bloat and waste the usual lawyer-to-lawyer courtesy at the expense of everyone else involved.

The first invoice from the Orange County lawyers of one of our clients revealed that more than 30 percent of the time was charged to handling e-mails. The minutes at a computer required just to open, read, download, copy, save, file and/or forward anything to do with the case took substantial time and without a whiff of substantive work being done. Add the flow of e-mails from other parties involved, even those merely saying “Thank you” for being copied, and it became serious money at $435 per hour.

What to do? First, end the monopoly in California that provides our lawyers with power, profit and protection by appointing nonlawyers to all agencies and governing bodies that have anything to do with the administration of justice, the establishment of legal policy, and/or the training and licensing of new lawyers. Second, re-establish through legislation or the initiative process the California public’s ownership of all aspects of the legal system by insisting that a fixed number of all appellate judges and members of judicial boards be nonlawyers and by allowing other professionals – such as notaries, consultants, negotiators, mediators, psychologists and others to handle a broad range of questions arising in legal matters.

Let’s once again make the law in California not a matter of money but a matter of justice.

Godfrey Harris has been a public policy consultant and business manager for 40 years. He served in President Johnson’s Executive Office, and has taught government and public affairs at UCLA and Rutgers University.