Is Licensing a Good Idea?

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Many of my best friends are a lawyer. I have a lot of friends who are lawyers and I like them all. They're fine people. Nothing we're talking about here is to impune the character or skill set of any of the lawyers that you or I might know personally. The question is whether it actually does protect folks, whether there are skills that a person could acquire without law school that could be helpful.

Clifford Winston of the Brookings Institution talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the market for lawyers and the role of lawyers in the political process. Drawing on a new co-authored book, First Thing We Do, Let's Deregulate All the Lawyers, Winston argues that restrictions on the supply of lawyers and increases in demand via government regulation artificially boost lawyers' salaries. Deregulation of the supply (by eliminating licensing) would lower price and encourage innovation.