If We Treated Lawyers Like Teachers

UNDERGRADUATE #1: Hey, fellow best-and-brightest type! What do you want to do when we graduate with our insanely expensive college degrees?

UNDERGRADUATE #2: Well, I was going to go to law school and become a lawyer. But I heard the bar exam was too easy, so that just doesn't sound like the right career path for me.

UNDERGRADUATE #1: Why, haven't you heard the news? They're going to make the bar exam more difficult! Doesn't that make you want to be a lawyer even more?

UNDERGRADUATE #2: More difficult? Gosh, that sounds great! But will I have any more prestige in my career, or have any more say in my profession, or make any more money when the bar exam becomes more difficult?

UNDERGRADUATE #1: No way, pal! Lawyering will be a low-paying, dead-end, highly-maligned job with bad working conditions, where your salary, benefits, and even deferred compensation, no matter how modest, can be cut whenever a politician feels like it!

UNDERGRADUATE #2: Awesome! Sign me up to be a lawyer today!

We should have become teachers; then maybe we'd get respect...