to drive the point home, jonathan swift in "gulliver's travells" has a hilariously true analogy of lawyers.
Here gulliver is explaining lawyers to the houyhnhnms, a horse-race ignorant of human society.
i'll highlight the funny/best bits in bold
I said, "there was a society of men among us, bred up from their
youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose,
that white is black, and black is white, according as they are
paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves. For
example, if my neighbour has a mind to my cow, he has a lawyer to
prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then hire
another to defend my right, it being against all rules of law that
any man should be allowed to speak for himself. Now, in this case,
I, who am the right owner, lie under two great disadvantages:
first, my lawyer, being practised almost from his cradle in
defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would be
an advocate for justice, which is an unnatural office he always
attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will. The second
disadvantage is, that my lawyer must proceed with great caution, or
else he will be reprimanded by the judges, and abhorred by his
brethren, as one that would lessen the practice of the law. And
therefore I have but two methods to preserve my cow. The first is,
to gain over my adversary's lawyer with a double fee, who will then
betray his client by insinuating that he hath justice on his side.
The second way is for my lawyer to make my cause appear as unjust
as he can, by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary: and
this, if it be skilfully done, will certainly bespeak the favour of
the bench. Now your honour is to know, that these judges are
persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well
as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most
dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been
biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a
fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I
have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where
justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing
unbecoming their nature or their office.
"It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever has been done
before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special
care to record all the decisions formerly made against common
justice, and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name
of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most
iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of directing
accordingly.
"In pleading, they studiously avoid entering into the merits of the
cause; but are loud, violent, and tedious, in dwelling upon all
circumstances which are not to the purpose. For instance, in the
case already mentioned; they never desire to know what claim or
title my adversary has to my cow; but whether the said cow were red
or black; her horns long or short; whether the field I graze her in
be round or square; whether she was milked at home or abroad; what
diseases she is subject to, and the like; after which they consult
precedents, adjourn the cause from time to time, and in ten,
twenty, or thirty years, come to an issue.
(to add a modern explanation: -lawyers get paid hourly)
"It is likewise to be observed, that this society has a peculiar
cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand,
and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special
care to multiply; whereby they have wholly confounded the very
essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong; so that it will
take thirty years to decide, whether the field left me by my
ancestors for six generations belongs to me, or to a stranger three
hundred miles off.
"In the trial of persons accused for crimes against the state, the
method is much more short and commendable: the judge first sends
to sound the disposition of those in power, after which he can
easily hang or save a criminal, strictly preserving all due forms
of law."
Here my master interposing, said, "it was a pity, that creatures
endowed with such prodigious abilities of mind, as these lawyers,
by the description I gave of them, must certainly be, were not
rather encouraged to be instructors of others in wisdom and
knowledge." In answer to which I assured his honour, "that in all
points out of their own trade, they were usually the most ignorant
and stupid generation among us, the most despicable in common
conversation, avowed enemies to all knowledge and learning, and
equally disposed to pervert the general reason of mankind in every
other subject of discourse as in that of their own profession."
eg. man robbing house falls off house, sues owner for negligence
you can't deny his genius
) plus the jurisprudence so that you understand the basis for the law.
