Excerpts from an essay called: “Do We Really Need Lawyers?”

Excerpts from an essay called: “Do We Really Need Lawyers?” (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/opinion/09iht-edsokol.html)
“I used to puzzle over why lawyers should be simultaneously much sought after and much maligned.
The solution lies hidden in the work itself. It comes with the onset of conflict or when fear of loss or hope of profit grows too acute. Lawyers delve into the nitty gritty of all the human problems one can imagine and some that defy imagination. They are paid to extricate clients from the financial or emotional nets in which they have become enmeshed or to find ways to escape being netted.
. . .
The lawyer is then the repairman, but unlike a simple household repair, he will find as many repairmen as there are people involved, and the repairs of one may be the disrepair of another. It may be that one party emerges partly unscathed, but for every partial winner there will normally be losers.
. . .
If life is not to become a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing, there must be rules. As prosperity renders life more diverse, so laws grow in number and complexity. If we value growth, then we must have those who write, study, and interpret the rules. And so one might justly say, unhappy is the land that needs no lawyers.”