Why So Many Lawyers?

by Pastor Dan Miller

^{Editor’s Note: This article was reprinted with permission from Dan Miller’s book Spiritual Reflections.}
Recent estimates indicate that our nation is home to seventy percent of the world’s lawyers. That figure may decline as other nations scramble to keep up with us, but perhaps not. In any event, we may conclude along purely statistical lines that lawyers play a sizable and even disproportionate role in our society.

This state of affairs is relatively new. Older citizens will recall a time when attorneys were few and their services rarely required. Today, lawyers are ubiquitous. They dot the social landscape and factor into our daily lives in ever increasing ways.

This burgeoning litigation industry has dramatically changed our society. Gone are the days when business deals were sealed with a handshake. The fear of being sued can render us skittish to perform what used to be second nature acts of decency and neighborliness. You have to fairly throw caution to the wind to help an injured motorist or to warn a potential employer of an applicant’s lack of character. Gone also are carefree smiles when a skateboarder turns a sharp pivot on your driveway apron.

What has happened to us? Why so many lawyers? Why does the threat of litigation hang like a smog over our daily lives in this country?

Drawing from the work of early twentieth-century English jurist, Lord Moulton, Dr. David Wells, of Gordon-Conwell Seminary, recently offered a helpful explanation. The insights of these two men are worthy of distillation and thoughtful reflection.

Moulton argued that it is utterly essential for democratic societies to uphold, and to ground themselves in, three mutually dependent and counter-balancing attributes. They are: freedom, law, and what Moulton called “obedience to the unenforceable.”

In the first place, we must preserve individual freedoms. People must be at liberty to believe, worship, and express themselves without fear of oppression.

Second, we must uphold law. Individuals who choose to express their freedoms in ways that harm others must be stopped. It is imperative that a democratic society hold the wrongdoer accountable, stifle oppression, and protect the vulnerable.

Third, we must uphold “obedience to the unenforceable.” By this is meant individual submission to the internal compulsion of healthy conscience in matters that extends beyond the reach of formal legislation.

When this mediating third attribute is lost, freedom and law go to war against one another. When personal freedoms are not tempered by obedience to internalized, moral restraints, freedom tends to grow headstrong and to run to the very limits of the law. And thus, for instance, the commonly heard, self-vindicating apologia: “As long as it is not illegal, I can do it.” Confronted with such heady expressions of freedom, law’s only defense is to shove back and take back territory from freedom’s latest advances.

But left to itself, law cannot adequately restrict freedom. Governing authorities can pass laws against spousal abuse, for instance, but they cannot legislate marital fidelity and loving kindness. Legislators can pass laws against theft and fraud, but they cannot legislate honesty, contentment, or loyalty. Unassisted by the moral restraints of individuals who both feed and heed a healthy conscience, law is left to claw away at freedom, and freedom is predisposed to challenge every limit the law establishes.

Why so many lawyers in this nation? In part because internal submission to unenforceable, moral responsibilities is in sharp decline. As Wells notes, even our language reveals this decline. Where once emphasis was placed upon the nurture of virtues (honesty, industry, kindness, patience, integrity, perseverance, compassion, etc.), we now emphasize values (which are self-defined, ever changing, and socially, rather than morally, conceived). Where once emphasis was placed upon the nurture of character (faithful, dependable, hardworking, selfless, etc.), we now emphasize personality (warm, charismatic, shy, optimistic, etc.).

As character and virtue are downplayed, the conscience grows weak and litigation stands forward as the preeminent means of self-preservation. We witness this state of affairs whenever the threat of a lawsuit proves more effective in correcting an individual’s bad behavior than appeal to his or her conscience.

Our culture places a strong emphasis upon freedom and law, and for this we should be very grateful. There is, however, a desperate need to nurture moral character. And for this to happen, we must appeal, not to human lawyers, but to the divine Lawgiver (1 Peter 1:14-16).

The fourth president of the United States, James Madison, wrote as a founding father of this great nation that he and his colleagues “ … staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments” (William J. Federer, America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, p. 411).

We can establish are own values and then revise them. We can write our own laws and then amend or discard them. But moral character and virtue are not defined by the shifting sands of popular opinion. Character and virtue are grounded in the nature of God, declared in his Word, and revealed to perfection in the life of his Son (John 1:14).

To define human character and virtue apart from the character and virtue of God is irrational. To pursue character and virtue apart from union with Christ is futile (Romans 3:20-26; 2 Corinthians 5:21). And to live as if character and virtue did not matter is self-destructive on both personal and societal levels, both here and hereafter (Romans 1:18-32).

Dan Miller has served as senior pastor of Eden Baptist Church (Savage, MN) since 1989. He graduated from Pillsbury Baptist Bible College (Owatonna, MN) with a B.S. degree in 1984. His graduate degrees include an M.A. in History from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and M.Div. and Th.M. degrees from Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He is nearing completion of D.Min. studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, IL). Dan is married to Beth, and the Lord has blessed them with four children.