Legal Ethics and Reform

Yet Americans are unwilling to address the "lawyer" problem openly. Why? The barrier seems to be the presence of one or more lawyers in most American families. So the furtive lawyer joke has become the ever present, and unacceptable, response.

The solution lies in staffing law making and governmental policy making positions with reform minded non-lawyers who are prepared to pass laws and constitutional amendments that will improve our legal system. Serious voter education could turn the secret ballot into an unstoppable force for legal reform. This education process needs to begin today.

There is one anomaly in the American governmental system that needs special attention. Since Marbury v. Madison was decided by the Supreme Court in 1803, that court has been accepted as the institution which "interprets" the U S Constitution. This fact combined with the fact that lawyers traditionally serve on the Supreme Count means that lawyers serving on the Court will ultimately decided which reforms will be "constitutional" and which will not. Either Supreme Court appointments must be reserved for non-lawyers or the appellate processes of the courts must change to assure that lawyers serving on the Supreme Court are not in a position to "nullify" voter effort to reform the legal system.