“We are over-lawyered and under-represented.”
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Remarks at the 100th Anniversary Luncheon of the Los Angeles County Bar Association (4 May 1978)
Presidency (1977–1981)
Context: We have the heaviest concentration of lawyers on Earth —one for every five-hundred Americans; three times as many as are in England, four times as many as are in West Germany, twenty-one times as many as there are in Japan. We have more litigation, but I am not sure that we have more justice. No resources of talent and training in our own society, even including the medical care, is more wastefully or unfairly distributed than legal skills. Ninety percent of our lawyers serve 10 percent of our people. We are over-lawyered and under-represented.