Corporate law is an ambiguous term. In NLG talk, it means, working for the bad guys, as I did for many years, but either as a litigator or as a transactional lawyer. A lot of big firm litigation is seriously soul-endangering work, defending large corporations against the people they have victimized or trying to get them or wealthy execs off the hooks for their crimes. I did a lot of that. Or then there's union-busting and employment discrimination defense. (Never did that, that was my bright line.)
Dealmaking, however, transaction work, really is the grease of the capitalist economy, and a lot of it is probably overall benign. No deals, no contracts, no biz, no employment. Sure it is exploitative employment, but as Joan Robinson says, in a capitalist economy the only thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited. Also, as I've insisted here on many occasions, there will be as much if not more need for lawyers to make deals and litigate business disputes in a socialist society.
So while lawyers like Mr WD who devote their careers to serving the poor for virtually no remuneration are admirable in the highest degree, lots of corporate law really is a public good. An overpaid public good, they just boosted NYC big firm starting salaries to $160K! (That's a lot to pay for having someone review dox for privilege and confidentiality!) but as long as people don't live like subsistence farmers or hunter-gatherers, what corpo lawyers do will be part of what they need.
I don't say this in self-exculpation. My work started out semi-morally neutral, my robber baron against your robber baron, who gets the money, or even beneficent, like advising the cops on how to respect people's constitutional rights, and I did (and do) a lot of pro bono work for the indigent (mostly murderers :->, it's true), but I ended up representing big tobacco against the states, big auto against the environment, big oil against a bunch of people whom they had defrauded or whose wells they had literally poisoned, crooked corps who had defrauded the shareholders, etc. The plaintiffs generally didn't have meritorious cases, but I didn't have explain why not to the judge.
So in saying that corporate law is a public good I don't pretend to defend my former activities. Much of corporate law is, however, a public good.
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> After a failed mayoral run, my Yale classmate
> Virginia Boulet (whom I
> didn't know at all, and still don't) is running for
> New Orleans city
> council. Her campaign bio contains this wonderful
> nugget:
>
>
<http://www.virginiaboulet.com/About-Virginia-Boulet.html>
>
> "Virginia chose to practice corporate law over the
> more common
> courtroom practice because she passionately believes
> that a strong
> economy and improved employment opportunity are
> necessary to a
> strong, vibrant, and successful community."
>
> Who knew corporate law was such a public good?
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
>
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