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GAZETTE
JULY/AUGIJST
19
Litigation in the U.S. — An
Overview
by
Gael Mahony, Attorney-at-Law*
(Text of an address given at the Society's Half-yearly meeting, May, 1984)
Y
OUR former President, Michael Houlihan, invited
me last year to attend your Annual Conference and
suggested that I might speak to you and the topic he
suggested was A Comparison of Law Practice in America
with Law Practice in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
The more I have thought about the suggestion the more
interesting it has become. There is nothing, perhaps, that
throws more light on things we take for granted than to
examine them through the eyes of someone else. I will be
speaking mostly about what is different in American Law
Practice from Law Practice here and in the United
Kingdom and I will offer some opinions on what
underlies the differences in American practice, and what
the traditions and attitudes are that have induced these
differences.
I am most grateful for the assistance which I received
from Professor Denis Driscoll of University College
Galway, Peter Sutherland your Attorney General,
Professor Robert Prichard and Patrick Curran the Irish
Consul in Boston.
Statistical Overview
Before getting into the subject of comparisons, I will
give you some statistical highlights on law practice in
AMERICA.
• There are approximately 613,000 lawyers in
America. Taken against a population of
230,000,000 people, this means there is one lawyer
for every 390 people in the country. In IRELAND,
by way of contrast, there is one lawyer for every 933
people in the country.
• The density of lawyers is greater in America
by far
than it is in any other country in the world. In
JAPAN, for example, there is only one lawyer for
every 10,000 people — which has led some wise men
to suggest that for every car Japan exports to
America we should make them import one
American lawyer back to Japan.
• The median age of American lawyers is growing
younger every year. This bespeaks a vast influx of
young people into the profession. From 1970 to
1980, the lawyer population in America increased
by fifty percent. In the same period, the median age
of lawyers dropped from 45 years to 40 years; in
1983 it was down to 37 years.
• The percentage of American Lawyers who are
women is growing very rapidly, especially in the
younger ranks. From 1972 to 1980, the number of
women lawyers increased from four percent of the
lawyer population to thirteen percent. Virtually all
of this growth has occurred in the younger age
groups. Today, approximately thirty percent of all
American lawyers under the age of thirty are
women. And the trend is ever upwards. I am told
that more than fifty percent of the freshman class of
New York University Law School this year are
women.
• What does this vast horde of American lawyers do?
• Approximately seventy percent of them are in
private practice. Thirteen percent are government
lawyers. Nine percent work for private industry.
The remainder teach, or work for public interest
organisations, or are retired from active practice.
• Let me add some economic data on American
lawyers in private practice. In 1983, the median
income of private practitioners in America was
$50,000; one-third of them earned more than
$75,000; one-fifth of them earned more than
$100,000. Their incomes tend to increase according
to the size of their law firms. In 1982, the median
income of partners in the largest New York law
firms — those having 150 lawyers or more — was
$232,000. To put that figure in perspective, only
three percent of the private practitioners in America
work in law firms that have more than 100 lawyers.
• Let me add a qualitative statistic. In a national
survey of American lawyers, eighty-nine percent of
them said they were happy with their career choice.
• By any objective standard, the profession in
America appears to be in remarkably good health.
It is growing. It is growing younger. Lawyers like
their work. And they are prospering. This is not to
say that the picture is uniformly bright. There are
many things American lawyers don't do well, and
many things they should do but don't do at all. But
notwithstanding our shortcomings, the meaning of
the statistics is unmistakable. The American bar is
strong and vigorous. Lawyers in America have
always played an important role in the political and
social development of the country — a subject I will
return to later. For better or for worse, that
condition is certain to continue.
Differences
In looking at law practice in America, and in Ireland
and the United Kingdom, perhaps the most striking
difference is the absence in the American system of any
formal separation between barristers and solicitors.
• This may be due in part to the geography in
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