Not what I said. What I said, was that their major contribution wasn't in the field of law. Adams, perhaps, but not Jeff/Wash.

I think that the study of most professions adds skills that individuals can leverage in many areas. I suspect that if Franklin had been pressed, he could have stood up to the best of them in a courtroom of the day. Not sure that the same could be said for Jeff/Wash/Adams in a science lab.

Their professions don't make them any more or less "important" to the founding. They each brought things that were needed. Paine a brilliant conveyor of ideas, Franklin a savvy and tough negotiator, Washington a stalwart commander, Jefferson a skilled integrator and synthesizer, the list goes on. Adams is the only one who stands out in my mind as notable for his legal background specifically - and for the courage to defend British soldiers because it was the moral thing to do.

No. I honestly was looking for an answer.

Tom Coburn is a doctor.

I'd like to see more engineers in Congress.

Most of my favorite characters in literature are engineers.
I think my favorite lawyer in literature is James J. Garsh from "Citizen of the Galaxy". (My favorite tv lawyer is Samuel T. Cogley, who defends Captain Kirk at his court martial... followed by ADA Benjamin Stone in the original "Law and Order").
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5ag8pwI...

We have 9 SCOTUS justices who don't seem to grasp the Constitution, and an occupant of the White House who's allegedly a professor of Constitutional Law who seems clueless as to what is actually IN the document.

There are pros/cons for either option. Pay by the hour you can stop any time you don't feel you're getting value, on the con side the lawyer can drag things out easily - so you need to have trust in them. Flat fee is a guaranteed cost, but to cover the possible contingencies the fee might be quoted substantially higher than it would in reality be so as not to get hit by unforeseen issues.

My business usually quotes customers a daily rate and a flat fee plus % of confirmed savings. The clients almost always take the hourly fee as that is a cost that they can control.

And lucrative, to boot!

Just so I understand, is "admirable" the standard for admittance, in your view?

Don't know how I think about that - I'd need to give it some thought. I can't think of anyone whom I admire that I wouldn't want to invite. I can think of a few whom I would, but don't necessarily admire. Hmmm, deserves more thought.

hear, hear!

I would say that the law is also based on a similar system. The lawyers in legislatures and bureaucracies continue to add more laws and regulations. There is no way that the average person can know or comprehend all of these laws, so they require the assistance of "experts," lawyers and paralegals, to study and interpret those laws - and even they get it wrong a lot of the time. It's a self-perpetuating situation.

Atticus was a just man, who happened to practice law. He didn't need to practice "law" to defend Tom Robinson, he practiced honesty. Even so, he lost - a moral lesson that even the good on a righteous quest, can lose to evil.

Why are so many of these positions filled with lawyers? I have a couple of theories.

1) The law is about control. It attracts those who like to control. Politics is about control.
2) It takes a lot of money and time to run for office. Many lawyers are parts of partnerships and have high margins. The partnership can afford to have one partner not servicing clients for the time it takes to run for office (incidentally, the same goes for doctors), and their clients are often serviced for the most part by clerks and paralegals in any case. Most "normal" workers, particularly blue collar, cannot afford to take off the time it takes to run for office.

Why do you assume that this post was meant to "give a bad rap" to lawyers? I asked a question, that was all. I was interested in where AR might position lawyers amongst the other professions clearly delineated as shruggers in the Gulch.

I'll give you contract law. That is absolutely going to be a necessity.

And you side-stepped the question.

And at least for Jefferson and Washington, their impact wasn't as lawyers.