Letter on Courts, Crafts, and the Cost of Being Heard
I want to begin with a confession, because confessions clarify motive.
I have not lived inside many legal systems. I know our own best—by experience, by proximity, by frustration, and by reluctant admiration. I know enough of others to recognize patterns, but not enough to speak as a comparative scholar.
That matters, because what follows is not an argument for replacement.
It is an argument for repair.
Repair, Not Rejection
Our legal system, taken as a whole, is mostly solid. That’s not fashionable to say, but it’s true. It is resilient, adaptive, and—when allowed to function as designed—remarkably capable of self-correction.
The failures we experience are not usually failures of principle.
They are failures of access, representation, and proportionality.
In short: too many voices never make it into the room, and too much of the room is reserved for those fluent in a private language.
The law is supposed to be the public’s instrument. Instead, it often feels like a gated craft—one that requires not only a grievance, but the resources and literacy to translate that grievance into a form the court will accept.
That translation gap is where legitimacy leaks out.
The Craft Must Remain a Craft
I do not believe the solution is to lower standards. Quite the opposite.
The law is a craft. It should remain one.
Good lawyering is difficult. It requires precision, discipline, and ethical restraint. Courts should be places of seriousness, not improvisation. We should want our advocates trained, tested, and accountable.
But we should not confuse professional excellence with private employment.
A Structural Question
Here is the thought I keep circling:
What if attorneys were officers of the court before they were agents of clients?
Not free-market mercenaries bidding for attention.
Not private gatekeepers to public justice.
But members of a unified legal service—housed under the judiciary, structurally independent of the other branches, and assigned to cases according to complexity, risk, and need.
I am told this resembles aspects of the English system. I’m less interested in the pedigree than the principle.
What That Would Mean in Practice
- Lawyers progress as craftsmen, not marketers
- Skill advancement unlocks higher-stakes, more complex cases
- Early-career advocates handle low-risk, straightforward matters
- Promotion follows demonstrated competence, not billable hours
- Judges are drawn from the same professional ladder
Clients would not “hire” lawyers in the commercial sense. They would be assigned representation, scaled to the matter at hand—much as patients are triaged in a functioning hospital.
No shopping for justice.
No pricing out of participation.
No advantage conferred by fluency in a niche dialect of procedure.
The court would remain adversarial—but the playing field would be level.
Why This Matters
This does two things at once.
First, it equalizes access.
Your ability to be heard would no longer depend on your ability to pay, perform, or posture. The court would meet you where the law says you belong.
Second, it protects the craft.
The legal profession would become more—not less—prestigious. Clear pathways. Transparent promotion. Public trust rooted in demonstrated skill rather than reputation.
We already accept this model elsewhere, without controversy.
Pilots do not negotiate midair over who flies the plane.
Surgeons are not hired through charisma alone.
Engineers advance because bridges stand.
We accept centralized professionalism when the stakes are high.
Justice should not be the exception.
The Cost of Inaccessibility
The current system asks too much of ordinary people. It demands they become fluent in procedure, precedent, and performance simply to articulate an idea.
That imbalance is not just inconvenient—it is corrosive.
When law becomes inaccessible, it stops feeling like a shared institution and starts feeling like an obstacle course designed by someone else.
This is not a critique of lawyers as people.
It is a critique of structural incentives.
Markets reward persuasion.
Courts require clarity.
Those goals are not always aligned.
Rebalancing, Not Scrapping
By nesting the legal profession fully within the judiciary—firewalled from politics, insulated from commercial pressure, and oriented toward service—we reduce the noise without dulling the blade.
Representation becomes a function of justice, not purchasing power.
And yes, this would require change.
It would require humility from a profession accustomed to autonomy.
It would require trust from a public accustomed to suspicion.
But republics are not preserved by comfort.
They are preserved by institutions willing to evolve without surrendering their spine.
Our system does not need to be scrapped.
It needs to be rebalanced.
The law should remain demanding—but not exclusive.
It should remain professional—but not privatized.
It should remain complex—but not impenetrable.
If the courts belong to the people, then the means of standing before them must belong to the people as well.
Otherwise, we risk confusing justice with literacy—and mistaking access for privilege.
Closing
Grammina used to say, when things got overly procedural:
“If you build a door, don’t charge admission just to knock.”
She wasn’t trained in the law.
But she understood fairness.
Sometimes that’s enough to point the way forward.
