I can't comment on the number of hours required, but seeing as how lawyers who enter the bar are given and enjoy and use a monopoly to practice law by society, I don't have a tremendous problem with their being required to pay society back for that monopoly.

It is because of that monopoly that the hourly rates for lawyers are so high.

Wages for lawyers are NOT free market for several reasons:

1) The bar monopoly
2) In a free market, the customer can walk away from a transaction. Most people needing a criminal lawyer do not have the luxury of walking away from a transaction. And given the time constraints, and given the costs even of an hour of a lawyer's time to interview them, they don't have the real ability to choose among many lawyers. It's a bit easier in civil cases, but still, people being sued don't really have the choice of not hiring a lawyer.

I know there are arguments by other lawyers on why that monopoly should be abolished, and perhaps it should be, but so long as it is there, so long as lawyers charge what they will and then claim it is a free market when it is not, then well, oh well, they can work for free.

Actually, Jerry, anyone can represent him/herself for free. If you've ever watch that occur, you'd understand the need for minimum standards to be licensed to represent others - standards which, IMO, need to be raised.

However, since you think licensure ("monopoly" as you call it) is such a terrible idea, if you need an operation, here's a knife & here's a mirror - now, DITY.

And, Amy, the problem with pro bono practice requirement isn't that it's pro bono. The problem is that it's unsupervised. Law schools make tons of money for their colleges. However, they frequently mass produce graduates who are woefully unprepared. But, paying experienced attorneys to mentor in a clinic setting, costs the school. And, Jerry, it isn't the licensure "monopoly" that drives young attorneys to charge the rates they do. It's having student loan debt in the $50K to $150K range, and also having 15 hour annual CLE requirements, 20 hour annual pro bono requirements, and not infrequently having to spend up to a third of their time trying to collect from deadbeats who think other people's labor should be provided to them for free because they don't think criminal laws should apply to them. If you don't want to pay for a criminal defense attorney, here's a hint - don't violate the law in the first place. And, insurers are required to pay for civil defense attorneys. So here's another hint - maintain your insurance. And, if you think there are too many laws and regulations on the books (and, there are), and it's too easy and cheap to bring frivolous suits (and, it is), here's a final hint - actively support candidates for the legislature who will vote to repeal laws and implementing regulations, and reduce government services. Unfortunately, that's the rub. Most folks want the services. But, they don't want to pay the taxes or comply with the laws and regulations implementing them, or to pay attorneys to guide them through the legal maze.

Thanks, Wfjag -- Tax Prof points that out at the link, in a way, with the note about legal aid not being able to take more lawyers who want to work for them because they don't have the supervisory staff.

This is perhaps the most ridiculous thing they could come up with. As someone in the legal field who dealing with fresh out of law school attorneys, no it doesn't work. Every year we get two new pre-bar associates (they're waiting for bar results) and one of these baby attorneys is assigned to me to get them up to speed on things and familiar with how to actually get something from conception to filing. As I like to tell new attorneys, you know the law and I know the practice of law, and how to actually get the shit on paper and out the door. Every associate in our firm has a partner who mentors them for several years. I usually only have the newbies for the first few months before they get their secretarial assignment, but they all come back to me when they run into problems. I have a second year attorney who is still figuring everything out. It's not that she's dumb, it's that the rules change every damn year.

Having a fresh out of law school attorney handling pro bono work is ludicrous. The people who can least afford to hire an attorney won't get the representation they need, because law school grads only know law school law, not real world law. What's going to end up happening, and I can see it now, there's going to eventually be a requirement by the Secretary of State for firms of a certain size that are newly incorporating to have a pro bono department to accommodate all these law school grads that have to fulfill their 50 hour requirement.

Hey, Jerry, this is an additional barrier to entry into the law profession.

If you really want to attack government granted monopolies, you'd be better served going after the almost-but-not-quite perpetual copyrights.

The following accounts for my 50 pro bono hours: I went to a busy intersection known for pedestrian traffic today. I advised 50 people that jaywalking was against the law. Since a single consulation is a one hour minimum charge under my normal fee schedule, I have fulfilled my obligation to the California State Bar.

High lawyer fees are a problem but this isn't the solution.

Short version: These idiots have it backwards. They are proposing a solution that is looking for a problem. But this solution will only cause more problems.

What makes you think I am a fan of perpetual copyrights?

I never said that

+ licensing requirements were a bad idea
+ the bar monopoly was a bad idea

I said that that there is a bar monopoly means there is no free market when setting wages of lawyers. And a clear reading of what I wrote suggests that others have arguments for removing that monopoly and perhaps it is a good idea that suggests I recognize the reasons it exists and sympathize.

"If you don't want to pay for a criminal defense attorney, here's a hint - don't violate the law in the first place."

Seriously?
I mean. Seriously?

And it's not even comparable to doctors given that:

+ there are often many very reasonable alternatives to expensive doctors including "walking away"
+ it is far more rare that the need for the doctor is immediate and urgent unlike the need for a criminal defense attorney or even the need for an attorney w/i 24 hours to respond to a suit
+ we can (mostly) get insurance to pay for medical needs and then use the power of the insurance company to bargain with the doctors

I have no problem with a required number of hours of pro bono service. Doctors have to serve as interns. They've droned away years in law school. Now they get to immerse themselves in the real world.