Justice is inaccessible--why do lawyers cost so much?

• Lawyers have a monopoly on the practice of law. Laws against the unauthorized practice of law prohibit non-lawyers from offering services that have anything to do with law. 
  

• Becoming a lawyer has a high cost of money, time, and effort, and the legal profession is regulated by lawyers, who have no reason to change the way legal services are rendered because as it is, consumers have no choice but to use them, and if non-lawyers could offer similar services, there would be more competition. 
  

• Nearly every state’s rules for professional conduct prohibit non-lawyers from creating, owning, and managing law firms, even if they are partnering with a lawyer. 
  

• This causes lawyers to focus on the clients with the most potential to make them money—namely, commercial businesses, which have funding on a scale far surpassing any individual. 
  

• In the meantime, the individual consumer is left behind as large law firms pursue wealthy corporate clients because it is the only way to sustain themselves, and small law firms are obligated to still price their services high due to having fewer clients with less lucrative legal problems. 
  

• There is no way to offer low-cost, large-scale legal services like other specialized consumer services, such as how H&R Block serves everyday tax filing needs as part of a large commercial chain.