Why Lawyers Get a Bad Rap | Michael Waldman | Big Think

Why Lawyers Get a Bad Rap

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Michael Waldman why lawyers are reviled.

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Michael Waldman:

Michael Waldman is a nationally prominent public interest lawyer, government official, teacher and writer. He became director of the Brennan Center in October 2005.

Mr. Waldman was Director of Speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995-1999, serving as Assistant to the President. He was responsible for writing or editing nearly 2,000 speeches, including four State of the Union speeches and two Inaugural Addresses. Previously, he was Special Assistant to the President for Policy Coordination (1993-1995). Mr. Waldman was the top administration policy aide working on campaign finance reform, one of the Center's signature issues, and drafted the administration's public financing proposal.

He is the author of several books, including My Fellow Americans: The Most Important Speeches of American Presidents (Sourcebooks, 2003); POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words that Defined the Clinton Presidency (Simon & Schuster, 2000); and Who Robbed America? A Citizens' Guide to the Savings and Loan Scandal (Random House, 1990).

Prior to his government service, Mr. Waldman was the director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch, then the capital's largest consumer lobbying office. After leaving the White House, he was a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government (2001-2003), teaching courses on political reform, public leadership and communications. Most recently he has been a litigator in private practice in New York. Mr. Waldman appears frequently on television and radio to discuss public policy, the presidency and the law. Michael Waldman is a graduate of Columbia College (B.A., 1982) and New York University School of Law (J.D., 1987), where he was a member of the Law Review.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: Why lawyers Get a Bad Rap

Michael Waldman: Well we have a lot of lawyers running around, and there’s been a quite substantial effort over the years by conservatives and businesses too, to point out the abuses as they see it, or the excesses of the legal system. But the interesting thing is most people, when it comes to their own life, they are perfectly happy to get a lawyer and they’re not as susceptible to all those arguments. I laugh at the example of Robert Bork who was one of the loudest voices about the abuses of the legal system. He fell of a lectern last year giving a speech, and I believe he filed a lawsuit against the place that was giving the speech. You know withdraw that, because I don’t want to say something-- I’m pretty sure that’s true, but I don’t want to get you in liable trouble. Let me answer it in a different way. People don’t like litigation. They don’t like paperwork. They don’t like legalisms. But when they’re in trouble or someone they know is in trouble, they understand the importance of law, and even occasionally, of lawyers.