Is There a Quality Problem With Legal Services?

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There was never any retrospective assessment to say, look how the quality of legal services has improved. You know, that would have been a nice thing to measure over time. We certainly know that we continue to have many different types of problems with lawyers in terms of scandals and all sorts of things.

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.