“Bad law and bad lawyering have become a problem for our country. Lawyers are responsible for much of what makes our country great, prosperous, and powerful – but they also hold the keys to our undoing.

This point was seen and emphasized with perspicacity as far back as 1835, by Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote that “the authority [Americans] have entrusted to members of the legal profession, and the influence which these individuals exercise in the Government, is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy,” and that by its nature the legal profession has a tendency to lean aristocratic (now we might say “elitist”), and anti-democratic.”

Read the full essay on The Constitutionalist.