Eric Holder Takes the Bullcrap Express to Montana

From The Missoulian:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that students at University of Montana's School of Law opt for careers in public service, urging them to consider "what we owe to our community, to our country and our fellow citizens."

"Today I call on each of you to choose action, to choose compassion," Holder said Wednesday.

What a load of schlocky crap.

First of all, although I've heard this weary refrain spouted from God knows how many self-righteous judges and professors, I've never once heard any sound justification for it beyond assuming the conclusion (i.e., that lawyers just "owe" non-attorneys and should bless them with public service).

Second, paid public service jobs are in incredibly high demand. Government and public service organizations turn away people who really want to work in public service all the time, so there's really no reason to "call" on people to work there, unless, of course, he expects people to work for free.

The legal profession "owes" absolutely nothing to the community, or the country, or our fellow citizens. In fact, many attorneys wouldn't be able to represent their clients well if they felt any kind of debt to society. Because law school is not a public service training ground. It is a professional service training ground. If you happen to represent the government, then your interests coincide. If you represent BP or a health insurance company, they probably do not.

But why do people like Holder (and, unfortunately, the people who run bar associations) continually think that lawyers should, as a normative value, give away their service for nothing? Why do lawyers owe more of a duty to the pubic than doctors, dentists, plumbers, grocers, farmers, auto repairmen, electricians, or any one else with specialized knowledge? Lawyers are no better suited for non-judge/AG public service than successful businessmen. Why are they especially "called?" Because the elites just decided that we collectively have this duty that they don't have the time to do themselves? Because it gives a feeling of elitism to be able to give your service away for free while 1/3 of your recent professional entrants have no work? Because elite lawyers want to believe - falsely - that they control access to justice?

I'm lost as to why people like Holder find it even remotely appropriate to tell trainees with 50k+ in debt and no jobs lined up that they have a duty to give back what they don't even yet (and may never) have, especially when it's to their collective economic disadvantage.

But that wasn't all for Holder.

Holder's talk marked the kickoff of the law school's centennial year, and he used it to highlight another anniversary, the swearing-in a half-century ago of Robert F. Kennedy as U.S. attorney general at the age of 35.

"I have been thinking a great deal about that moment and the extraordinary years of ballot drives, freedom rides, free schools and civil rights breakthroughs that soon followed it," he said.

Such activism, he said, "may be America's oldest - and perhaps finest - tradition. Since our nation's earliest days, young people - and, specifically, young lawyers - have been using their knowledge and training to stand up for justice."

Um...yeah. Okay, first of all, Robert Kennedy didn't have much to do with anything that actually happened in the 60s. Top-down civil rights initiatives, yes. Cuban Missile Crisis - yes, he more or less handled that. A great politician? Absolutely, but it's nothing more than mythmaking to give him credit for "the extraordinary years . . . that soon followed." Brown v. Board and Cooper v. Aaron were already done years before Kennedy was in the national spotlight. The foundations of the civil rights movements were in the 50s. And considering the politics of the time, I can't see an alternative Nixon administration and/or other A.G. doing a damn thing differently regarding the freedom riders or the other developments in the early 60s. And all of that would have happened with or without "young lawyers" who aren't particularly trained "to stand up for justice." (Who, except a vapid tool, has to be "trained" to stand up for justice, if that's their calling?)

It's such a blatantly egocentric view, i.e., "the guy in my shoes was a huge part of that," the implication being that Holder is something much more than he is.

But not everyone was trained to be so skeptical to see Holder's words as such blatant bullcrap.

First-year law student Dustin Leftridge of Missoula said he found Holder's message "incredibly inspirational."

"A call to service by the attorney general" dovetailed perfectly with his own idea of success in the legal profession, Leftridge said. "It's much more than somebody with a flashy Corvette and a nice suit."

Good God. I don't even know what to say.