Is it just me, or does this fellow not seem entirely believable?? I started writing some rebuttal points, but then gave up as it would take too long.<p>I realize, the concept and enforcement of law is crucial to our way of life. However, the vast majority of work that is conducted by lawyers (on a dollar basis) is redundant. It is fairly well documented (in Canada at least) that lawyers have lobbied heavily, and succeeded, in shutting out paralegals from large subsets of their work.<p>I've dealt with lawyers on a few occasions, and it is almost always the same...they charge ungodly rates, they generally (after all, these are just normal people) have a marginal understanding of their craft.<p>In this day and age, a GOOD software developer has to know WAY more than a lawyer (after all, we can't just ask our assistant to figure something out for us)...not to mention, in software it seems everything changes totally about every 5-7 years.<p>And the ramble about standard forms, that they put so much work into refining for each particular client....you are just outright lying, period. I've been through this before. If you, as lawyers, want respect from people, then if you a re-using a contract template, you should notify us and charge us accordingly. I know you are going to charge me based on "value", but you imply that all of you are not using variations of the same template.<p>Long story short, I think you are lying, and you likely agree, but nothing ever will come of it. The beauty of law is that. a huge percentage of politicians are former lawers, so most of what they propose gets though legislation.<p>So, generally, I don't fault you for the money you make, you do server a purpose in society, but you can be faulted for manipulating legislation to make certain services only executeable by full on lawyers, etc., etc. etc. You know, there's a reason almost everyone thinks you are crooks, it's not just some stereotype we are told as children.<p>In my opinion, even though you are crucial in some scenarios,in the aggregate, you are thiefs (according to the dictionary definition), and your lobbying has made the world a worse place.