Half a Million Lawyers in the USA

Ø 1) What does the title of the text imply?

“It was you, wasn’t it? ” says the district attorney, pointing to the woman on the other side of the courtroom. “It was you who murdered your husband.”

“Yes! ” says the woman, hiding her face in her hands. “Oh God, yes, it was me! ”

“OK. Cut! ” shouts the movie director. “One minute break, everyone.” He is pleased. He knows that his TV series will be a success. The great interest that Americans have in the law and the courts will make sure of that.

It is extraordinary, in fact, how important the law is in America’s national life. Indeed, the justices of the Supreme Court are some of the most powerful people in America. It is often they, rather than the politicians, who make the big decisions that will change people’s daily lives. It is the justices who decide that black children and white children should go to school together. It is they who decide whether criminals should be punished by death. Politicians, after all, can lose an election if they make unpopular decisions. Justices keep their job for life.

The nine justices of the Supreme Court are probably the most respected people in the U.S.A., but Americans do not think so highly of the less important lawyers. Perhaps this is because there are so many of them. One in every 450 Americans is a lawyer, and in Washington, D.C., the number is one in every sixty-four.

One reason for the large number of lawyers is that each state has different laws. In Alabama, for example, the school age is from seven to sixteen years old. In Pennsylvania, it is eight to seventeen. In addition to the different state laws, there are also federal laws, which everyone must obey.

Americans hurry to the courts of law to fight for their rights for all kinds of reasons. This can be a good thing. No employer can afford to be careless about safety. The workers might take him to court. No doctor can be careless with her patient. She will find herself in court, ordered to pay millions of dollars for her mistake.

Some people feel that things have gone too far. Take Mr. and Mrs. Zak, for example. One evening they offered scotch to a guest who then drove off in his car and crashed. The court decided that the Zaks had been wrong togive their guest scotch and allow him to drive away drunk. They were ordered to pay $72, 500. It must have been the most expen­sive bottle of scotch the Zaks ever bought.

Ø 2) Find the definition of the word “attorney” in the dictionary.

Ø 3) Prove that it is often the justices, rather than the politicians, “who make the big decisions that will change people’s daily lives” in the USA.