Number of Lawyers in Congress Plummets

From the ABA Journal:

In the mid-19th century, nearly 80 percent of members of Congress were lawyers, according to the paper (available here). The percentage fell to less than 60 percent in the 1960s and less than 40 percent in 2015. The Washington Post covered the findings by study author Nick Robinson, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School and an affiliated fellow at Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession.

Reasons given include (1) Today, there are other gateways to political office. (2) Lawyers don’t want to give up their generous incomes for the lesser incomes of political figures.

You can read more here.

(ljs)