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Rough stuff, yet lawyers may be held in lower esteem in the U.S. today than ever before. One 1978 Harris poll rating public confidence in 16 institutions found law firms at the bottom along with Congress, organized labor and advertising agencies. Watergate, of course, did much to fuel public suspicion. Even though many of Watergate's heroes were lawyers (Sam Ervin, Archibald Cox, Leon Jaworski), so were most of the heavies; and there were more of them, from Richard Nixon, John Mitchell and John Ehrlichman on down. And who can forget John Dean's plaintive question: "How in God's name could so many lawyers get involved in something like this?" But the distrust springs from many sources other than Watergate.

Legal malpractice suits, virtually unheard of only a decade ago, have proliferated steadily, along with considerable publicity. No less a figure than Chief Justice Burger has suggested that perhaps 50% of U.S. trial lawyers are incompetent; that comment created quite a stir, but there was scarcely a peep a few years earlier when Chesterfield Smith, a former president of the American Bar Association, said that he would not trust 20% to 25% of all lawyers. Nor is mere incompetence the only complaint on the rap sheet against lawyers. Greed and arrogance are high on the list as well. Plainly, the professionals once described by Tocqueville as "the American aristocracy" have an image problem.

Of course, there are vast numbers of lawyers who are decent, fair, competent professionals of unimpeachable integrity. Many are not even very prosperous. Though starting salaries for the brightest young law grads exceed $25,000 a year, and senior partners at the biggest firms can count on earning well into six figures, many lawyers operate marginally. The average income, in fact, is an estimated $26,500, less than half that of doctors.

Few professional groups are subjected to such rigorous, competitive schooling. Law schools are hard to get into. But the dropout rate at some of the less prestigious schools is high, and a number of those who do graduate choose not to practice law. Probably the greatest change in law schools in the past decade involves the great influx of women. In 1968 they accounted for only 6% of the enrollment; today they constitute fully 25%; and at a few schools the figure is 50% or more. Says one lawyer: "Women are raising the standards of the profession."

Many of those who go to law school see it as a gateway to politics or a shortcut to other forms of power in an increasingly complex and technical society. But there are also those whose expectations are lower and who see the law in more prosaic terms: as a way of earning maybe $5,000 or $10,000 a year more than an insurance salesman or a high school teacher. In any case, quite a few are shut out of the legal field; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 30% of next June's crop of new lawyers will be unable to find jobs in law.