Over the years, people have told me that lawyers are very smart. However, having been in the business for quite some time, I would say that while there are some very smart lawyers, and I’d say somewhere in the neighborhood 10-20% are, but not necessarily the rest. You see, there are a lot of lawyers and attorneys who are pretending so they can charge you more money. Not to mention the fact that it is often the paralegals and others in the office who do most of the work. Of course, instead of getting on my horse or making some lawyer jokes, I’d like to talk to you about some research on this topic.
There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on August 28, 2012 titled; “Study Shows Why Lawyers Are So Smart” by Sam Favate, who appeared in the Law Blog section, and I have no doubt that a group of lawyers was behind this study. The article noted that even those who simply study for the LSAT for 3 months or 100 hours do better on specific parts of the IQ test. A neuroscience professor at MIT believes the study is not that surprising since every time the brain learns something new or strange, it creates new pathways, which is what the researchers had reasoned because it seemed to increase communication between brains.
Well, no problem, and although I have little use for lawyers and I do not consider them smarter, I also realize that since they live and work in a false world, different from reality, they are working or learning in a way totally new environment. Almost as if we were throwing you into a third world nation, in a town with different customs and a different language, you would have to learn your way of getting along and also develop different paths.
Now I would tell you that computer programmers are also getting smart and creating new avenues of communication between brains as they immerse themselves in a whole new world. The same goes for math or music, it seems to be a totally different field. It has been shown that those who travel a lot, or even taxi drivers in New York, as they learn the ins and outs of getting around the city, they also increase their intelligence levels and create new brain pathways.
So, in conclusion, I would say that anyone who has to use their brain for something that is quite foreign to them and a completely new way of thinking will increase their intelligence level to some extent. If we say that makes them smarter, so be it. In that case, the lawyers are smarter up to a point. In fact, I hope you will please consider all of this and think about it. If you are a lawyer, I am willing to discuss this issue on an intellectual level, but in this area, I am in command, and you cannot twist the law of nature in your favor. It is what it is.