Just how smart are lawyers?

[Notta]

Apparently, not as smart as in previous generations: from The Lawyer.com (http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=136916&d=415&h=417&f=416)

Lindsey Macmillan, a researcher at the Bristol University-based CMPO, said:

“Despite the fact that lawyers are looking a lot less like the average person in terms of their family income, they are looking more like the average person in terms of ability.”

The gap in IQ performance compared to the average fell for most other vocations, as well as the law. Doctors, teachers, bankers and stock brokers
all moved closer to average intelligence between the two studies.

Artists, engineers, scientists and journalists have all become more intelligent when compared to average IQ scores, the research found. (emphasis added)

Well. THAT explains a lot, doesn't it?

[DMB]

I wouldn't give too much credance to this study as it is reported there. There are really no details to speak of.

[Notta]

Way to explode my pipe dream, DMB, that some lawyers in particular are not as smart as they'd like to think they are.....

As far as doctors go, when I was an undergraduate I majored in medical microbiology. Most of my classmates were students who did not get accepted into the pre-med major, so were taking the next best thing.

I was constantly amazed at finding out that some people who could get all As in organic chemistry were such major idiots in all other respects. Many of my classmates were accepted into medical school. One of them was a man who constantly burned canned SOUP, forgot to turn off his gas burners, was always behind in paying his utility bills, and didn't even renew his driver's license, resulting in its loss. Today, he's a DOCTOR. (One I would never use, however.)

[DMB]

Don't you think, Notta, that some of that is because he was a man? I find that in general men tend to have a narrower focus than women. Given that for most of the history of human development women have had to do some sort of work while looking after children, they have had to be able to multitask.

[Notta]

Don't you think, Notta, that some of that is because he was a man? I find that in general men tend to have a narrower focus than women. Given that for most of the history of human development women have had to do some sort of work while looking after children, they have had to be able to multitask.
I do think men are more narrowly focused than women, but this guy was above and beyond "unfocused." He was usually the butt of jokes because he was so inept. No one thought he would ever be accepted to medical school.

I wouldn't want to have a doctor who was still thinking about his previous patient as he stood at my hospital bed to discuss my case with me.

[Anne]

As I always say, what do you call a person who graduates last in his/her class in Medical school?














doctor.

[nygreenguy]

Well, Katie is pretty damn smart! 2 bachelors in 3 years and she got a law degree and a graduate certificate!

[Anne]

She's in a league of her own.

[DMB]

Well my daughter's pretty smart. She's a lawyer in the City of London and she got a first from Oxford (something to be proud of). But not all lawyers are that smart.

[Anne]

Lawyers in my experience are good at memorizing, which is not the same as being smart.

Although there are smart lawyers out there.

[Mediancat]

There's brute memorization, and then there's being able to interpret and apply what you've memorized.

Rob

[nygreenguy]

Well my daughter's pretty smart. She's a lawyer in the City of London and she got a first from Oxford (something to be proud of). But not all lawyers are that smart.

Very true. Ive met the students at SU law. Most are dumber than a box of rocks.

[Notta]

Very true. Ive met the students at SU law. Most are dumber than a box of rocks.
There's a well-know creo poster who haunts science discussion boards. He goes by various names, and he's a lawyer. He has long-winded posts that make absolutely no sense, has instigated numerous lawsuits he has consistently lost, and is a total idiot. And a lawyer.

The judge in the $16 million dollar lost pants lawsuit obviously went to law school at some point in his life. (Washington, DC, two years ago -- his Korean dry cleaners lost the pants to a suit, he claimed damages because he was not "100% satisfaction guaranteed" even though they FOUND the pants and RETURNED them. He lost his judgeship.)

[Octavia]

If lawyer IQs are getting lower, it might speak to relaxed entrance admission standards for law schools. But then, you could say that about a lot of different university programmes. Privately, I am convinced that to get entry into the Commerce faculty at my uni, for instance, one only needs to have an intelligence slightly greater than that of the most retarded amoeba.

[Goldie]

I have one very good lawyer...very savvy and smart...our business lawyer.

I think our lawyer for Bumpy is kind, and fairy intelligent, but very irresponsible and lazy.

I think they are like any other group. Some are great and some are educated idiots.

[Octavia]

^True. I don't think there's any group who doesn't have it's useless brigade.

Well. Maybe professional chocolatiers. I'll forgive them just about anything - even murder, if they don't try and hide the body in the chocolate.

[RBH]

As those who have seen my posts on Panda's Thumb about the Freshwater affair (directory at the bottom of this post (http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/02/freshwater-day-9.html)) know, I've spent a good deal of time listening (and talking) to lawyers over the last few months. There's a good deal of variability in just the half dozen involved in that case, but I have to say that with one exception, they're all able to walk and chew gum at the same time. :D

[BWE]

Apparently, not as smart as in previous generations: from The Lawyer.com (http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=136916&d=415&h=417&f=416)

(emphasis added)

Well. THAT explains a lot, doesn't it?

Makes me feel good. I'm an artist, scientist, engineer, and journalist.

But Lawyers still make more money. :/

[Jobar]

Smart or not, it's certainly true that the law is the safest profession to have if you're in a shipwreck; the sharks will avoid you out of professional courtesy...

[Christina]

The only lawyers that I've worked closely with were ones that were responsible for approving IT contracts with vendors. Once I had it the way that I wanted it they would go over it with a fine tooth comb to find any potential problems, and they took the lead if we had to go into arbitration. It was limited exposure but I found that I learned a lot by the way that they thought (much of it suspicion), but they were able to cut through a lot of unnecessary and potentially problematic statements and clarify things very well. It taught me to take a long, pissed off email and throw it away and replace it with the 3 sentences that said only what we needed to and to lose the editorializing. That said, if I never have to develop another contract again that's just fine by me.

[Garnet]

In my experience, lawyers are no smarter or dumber than any other group of specialists. I have worked with some brilliant lawyers. I have also worked with lawyers who were as dumb as a bag of hammers.

[Ray Moscow]

In my experience, lawyers are no smarter or dumber than any other group of specialists. I have worked with some brilliant lawyers. I have also worked with lawyers who were as dumb as a bag of hammers.

That's how I see it, too.

[Steviepinhead]

Yep.

I'm one of the older generation of lawyers, so I guess I could hide behind that.

But...

I think one factor is that there has been a proliferation of law schools. The standards are still pretty high to get into the top 50 or so, very high to get into the top 20, and just about ridiculous to get into the top five or ten. But there's hundreds of US law schools.

Most of them are even accredited.

By somebody or other.

The proliferation is demand-driven, of course. So the first place to look is in the mirror: we iz a litigious society (hey, we've actually got "rights" and a "rule of law," unlike lots of other places we coulda been born), and TV from Perry Mason right on up to the latest CSI shows has trained several generations to believe that the best (aka most clever) lawyer wins, rather than (as is still usually the case, high-profile cases to the contrary) the lawyer with the best (aka most easily-explained, "common-sensical") set of facts and the most appealing (aka most easily-identified-with) client.

And most lawyers never get near a court, whether civil, criminal, family law, probate, or regulatory body -- they are busy drawing up inscrutable contracts, unenforceable warranties, serving in legislatures, and the like. Not to mention doing yeo-person service drafting wills, childcare agreements, no-contact orders, and saving threatened species...

Of my three sons, only the youngest is going to law school. He went to the same uni as me, which I know is about a zillion times harder to get into than when I went there, and so I'm pretty sure he's at least a couple times smarter than I used to be in my heyday. And I'm still a lot smarter than many of the bozos out there, even if I am a pinhead...

So, yeah, there's good ones and bad ones, smart ones and dumb ones, ones with people skills, and ones sorely lacking them, just like with every other line of work...

One trusts they don't really need studies to figure this kind of stuff out.

[Anne]

It amazes me what they need studies to find out.

Hey there, btw!

[Steviepinhead]

Back atcha! :o

[darjeeling]

I think one factor is that there has been a proliferation of law schools. The standards are still pretty high to get into the top 50 or so, very high to get into the top 20, and just about ridiculous to get into the top five or ten. But there's hundreds of US law schools.

^^ This.

What bugs me is that almost every lawyer I've ever run into seems to demand respect just because they have that piece of paper, since mere possession of a law degree apparently proves you're intelligent. I mean, like, torts was, like, really, really hard and stuff, I mean, you try it, okay?

[Steviepinhead]

Well, torts can be interesting and challenging, out near the surface of the envelope where the statutory and common law continue to expand and define the field.

But that doesn't mean that any reasonably people-savvy (or just plain hard-working) law school grad can't wrap his or her head around the basics, and make a successful practice out of running the usual sorts of clients involved in the usual sorts of scenarios through the usual gavotte with the insurance companies. Whether they the grad happens to be exceptionally bright or not. Or to have done well in law school or not. Or to have gone to a demanding law school or not. Etc.

[dancer_rnb]

It amazes me what they need studies to find out.

Hey there, btw!

What would you say if the results had been different from what you expected?:evil:

[darjeeling]

Well, torts can be interesting and challenging, out near the surface of the envelope where the statutory and common law continue to expand and define the field.

But that doesn't mean that any reasonably people-savvy (or just plain hard-working) law school grad can't wrap his or her head around the basics, and make a successful practice out of running the usual sorts of clients involved in the usual sorts of scenarios through the usual gavotte with the insurance companies. Whether they the grad happens to be exceptionally bright or not. Or to have done well in law school or not. Or to have gone to a demanding law school or not. Etc.

Yeah, agreed. And for someone like me, something like torts would probably be difficult. :p

I'm just saying that's the kind of attitude that most lawyers I've met seem to have - "Law school is really, really hard, and I got through it, so you have to automatically respect me." Meh.

[Steviepinhead]

Most lawyers (and, before there were lawyers, law students...) I know seemed to find Law School a rather unpleasant rite of passage. Like any other rite of passage, particularly ones that include elements of hazing (aka the Socratic Method...), once through it, it seemingly becomes necessary to overdramatize the difficulties of making it through.

I rather enjoyed law school. The practice of law, less so, though it to has had its moments.

But then I tend to enjoy learning new things more than I do working. Or maybe I just enjoy working more when it's in the pursuit of learning new things...