Law: Challenging the Hired Guns

But a new legal survey disputes Burger's harsh remarks

For more than a decade, Warren Burger has used the podium at conventions of the American Bar Association to administer tongue-lashings to his colleagues. At the A.B.A. convention held in Las Vegas last week, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court delivered some of his harshest comments to date on the ethics of the U.S. bar. He called lawyers "hired guns" and "procurers" and accused some of advertising their services as if they were selling "mustard, cosmetics and laxatives." He said that attorneys file too many frivolous lawsuits and motions, and declared that...