Bar rigor campaigns mixed public interest with supply-control motives

Evidence

In much of this development, the bar lobbied hard for more rigor. The motives were, as usual, mixed. Many lawyers sincerely wanted to upgrade the profession. This went along with a more selfish desire to control the supply of lawyers and keep out price cutters and undesirables. Control was, arguably, in the public interest. To keep out bad lawyers was as beneficial as getting rid of quacks, or policing how midwives or pharmacists were trained; more defensible, probably, than license laws for barbers, plumbers, and embalmers of the dead. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3745

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to ch49 and ch50’s occupational-licensing-as-group-self-interest theme, and frames the anti-competitive logic of bar exams for the institutions course.