According to the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA), the number of lawyer would grow from 22,000 in 2006 to 123, 484 in 2056, 5.6 times as many as today's lawyers, because of the reform of the National Bar Examination. (See above the figure. The vertical axis shows the number of justice, public prosecutor and lawyer, and the horizontal axis year.) Many lawyers are worried about their own future.
What's the effect of the increase in lawyer? To answer this question, we need some basic principles of economics. Today's topic is about the impact of an increase in lawyer on our society and life. I'll tell you about some of the effects from the perspective of elementary economics ― a supply-demand diagram.
An increase in lawyer, translated into economics idea, means the rightward shift of the supply curve of lawyer. The demand for lawyer unchanged, the number of lawyer increases and the price of lawyer decreases. What's the meaning of a decrease in the price of lawyer? For example, it is thought to be a legal consultation fee. In Japan, consulting with lawyer costs about US$40 per half hour. I don't know whether it is expensive. An increase in lawyer would push down the fee and thus pay him or her less. (Of course, consulting with very popular and competent lawyer would cost higher than with normal one, because the demand for very popular one is higher.)
Lower payment for lawyer leads to high benefit for the customer, however. Lower price of lawyer may increase the demand for lawyer. This problem has something to do with what sort of goods lawyer offers: The demand is less likely to be sensitive to the downward change of price because not all the services offered by lawyer are luxury goods. And so, in an economics term, the elasticity of the demand to the price change would be relatively smaller. (Employing a very famous and talented lawyer may be no better than using luxury goods. And then the elasticity may be larger.) What does a small elasticity imply? A smaller elasticity of demand indicates that the demand curve slopes steeper. If the supply of lawyer increases(the supply curve shifts rightward), the price of lawyer's services would decrease even more because of a steeper slope of the demand curve. This is a worse thing to lawyer.
From the viewpoint of "welfare economics", on the condition that the market is highly competitive, the surplus of lawyer (a producer surplus) gets smaller and the surplus of the costomer (a consumer surplus) larger if the supply shifts to the right. In other words, lawyer earns less and becomes unhappier and, at the same time, the costomer benefits more and happier. It is easier for consumer to take the legal services offered by lawyer when he or she faces the problems of domestic violence, divorce, company set-up and so on. At last, the total surplus (a social welfare; something like an index of happiness of all the members in a society)increases and thus the market outcome is socially efficient. That is, everyone in our society gets much better and happier than usual, at least except the lawyer.
To my analysis, an increase in lawyer is a very good thing to everyone in our society, of course, including me and except lawyer. I approve of increasing lawyers because I am not a lawyer.
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