One in twelve residents of the District of Columbia is an attorney, but if you think that seems ample, there are those who disagree:
“It sounds like a lot of lawyers, but it’s not nearly enough,” said Matthew Fraidin, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia. “There are just an immense number of people who go unrepresented every year. The need for legal service attorneys has increased and the funding for them has decreased.”
I’m quoted in the piece too. [Brian Hughes, Washington Examiner]
5 Comments
Asuming that lawyers work 40 hour weeks like everyone else with two weeks off for vacation, that’s 2000 work hours a year, split among 12 clients for just over 166 hours per client. What are people doing that they need to use four weeks of a lawyer’s time every year?
Bob
Mr. Lipton’s calculation goes off the rails immediately: lawyers (at least those in private practice ) do not work 40 hours per week. They bill at least 40-50 hours per week, with actual office time more like 60-80 hrs.
The last phrase of the last line gives the game away:
the funding for them has decreased.”
Every problem in DC would be solved if there was just more money for more attorneys.
Well Mike, you make his point even better then. If the correct amount of billable hours is 50 / week. That makes the math as follow:
50 hrs / week x 50 weeks / year = 2500 billable hours / year
2,500 hours / 11 people (the non-lawyers) = 227 hours / non-lawyer person. Or, at the said rate of 50 billable a week, only 4 1/2 weeks of solid lawyering per non-lawyer person.
Now, if a lawyer needs a lawyer (and we all know that a lawyer has a fool for a client if he’s working for himself) then we’ll divide by 12 instead of 11 and it still works out to 208 hours / person, or a bit over 4 weeks a year per person.
🙂
I look forward to a future America where everyone is a lawyer. Only then will everyone needing legal representation have access to a lawyer.