How the lawyer party forces us into court

Here is an explanation for why we are overlawyered:

The United States is already the most litigious society in the world. We spend about 2.2 percent of gross domestic product, roughly $310 billion a year, or about $1,000 for each person in the country on tort litigation, much higher than any other country. This includes the costs of tort litigation and damages paid to victims. About half of this total is for transactions costs — mostly legal fees. ...

Law is the profession that’s best represented in the US Congress. ...

The theoretical consideration is that lawyer-legislators can, by deciding on statutory law, affect the very basis of their business and that this is particularly the case for tort law. A look at the raw data (figure below) indicates that lawyer-legislators are less likely to support reforms that restrict tort law than legislators with a different professional background. ...

Overall, the findings are consistent with the hypothesis that lawyer-legislators, at least in part, pursue their private interests when voting on tort issues. From a broader perspective, the results highlight the relevance of legislators’ identities and individual professional interests for economic policy making. ...

Though fewer than one in 200 Americans has a law licence, the profession can lay claim to a third of the current House of Representatives and to more than half the seats in the Senate.

For comparison, in both Britain’s House of Commons and its Canadian counterpart just one in seven members is a lawyer, and one in 15 deputies in the French Assemblée Nationale.

The article does not mention that the Democrat Party has become the lawyer party. The great majority of Democrat leaders, presidential candidates, cabinet secretaries, and advisors have been lawyers in recent years. Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the others are lawyers and primarily associate with lawyers. Most major Republicans have not been lawyers.

Being a lawyer if very corrupting to one's worldview. Obama and the Clintons have attitudes that they can do whatever they can get away with, and give very legalistic and evasive justifications when pressed.