Bentham on lawyers

“It is the people’s interest that delay, vexation and expense of procedure should be as small as possible:—it is the advocate’s that they should be as great as possible: viz. expense in so far as his profit is proportioned to it; factitious vexation and delay, in so far as inseparable from the profit-yielding part of the expense. As to uncertainty in the law, it is the people’s interest that each man’s security against wrong should be as complete as possible; that all his rights should be known to him; that all acts, which in the case of his doing them will be treated as offences, may be known to him as such, together with their eventual punishment, that he may avoid committing them, and that others may, in as few instances as possible, suffer either from the wrong or from the expensive and vexatious remedy. Hence it is their interest, that as to all these matters the rule of action, in so far as it applies to each man, should at all times be not only discoverable, but actually present to his mind. Such knowledge, which it is every man’s interest to possess to the greatest, it is the lawyer’s interest that he possess it to the narrowest extent possible. It is every man’s interest to keep out of lawyers’ hands as much as possible; it is the lawyer’s interest to get him in as often, and keep him in as long, as possible: thence that any written expression of the words necessary to keep non-lawyers out of his hand may as long as possible be prevented from coming into existence”. (Book of Fallacies, Part 1, Chapter 1)

“Under every system, every mercenary lawyer—under the fee-gathering system, every lawyer without exception,—has an interest, as unquestionably, though not as uniformly, opposite to the general interest, as that which forms the bond of union in communities of thieves or smugglers. Under that system, every lawyer without exception, the whole fraternity together, with the judges at their head, have a particular interest in common with the interests of malefactors and wrong-doers of every description, not excepting thieves ands smugglers. It is their interest that lawsuits,—understand those and those alone which are pregnant with fees,—lawsuits, by whatsoever name distinguished, action or prosecution, may abound to the utmost pitch. That prosecutions may abound, it is their interest that crimes of all sorts may abound: that actions may abound, it is their interest that wrongs of all sorts may abound: as well those wrongs of which the hand of the judge is the pretended avenger, as those of which it is the unacknowledged instrument. It is their interest that wrongs of all sorts be sometimes punished, lest plaintiffs be discouraged, and the mass of litigation and profit be diminished at one end: it is their interest that wrongs of all sorts remain sometimes unpunished and triumphant, lest the mass of litigation and profit be diminished at the other end. It is their interest that every modification of vice, by which litigation with its profit can be produced, may abound; and thence, in a more especial degree, that mendacity, the instrument and cloak of every vice, may abound.” (Rationale of Judicial Evidence, Book 1, Chapter 11)