I don't agree with Sayrane that the language of law has to be complex. I can think of an English Act of Parliament which is less than 20 pages long, so clear an ordinary person can understand it and sets out the law relating to an important business structure. It was passed during the reign of Victoria and has never been amended, because it doesn't have to be.
All that matters is clarity of thought and language.
But lets get back to basics. Originally, judges wanted to avoid time-wasting (Yes, I know your wife and kids have left and your house has burned down, but what's that got to do with the speeding charge?) So lawyers, who knew how to do this so far as the law was concerned, garnered to themselves an exclusive right of audience before the courts. Once they had the exclusive right, they started to charge accordingly and to set qualifications for themselves.
This is the happy supposition that Courts have something to do with fairness and justice (you think?) Courts have nothing to do with fairness, only with the law, so we are told.
But suppose we look at them as something whose connection with the law might be a bit vague. Consider the American West. The Americans have this big democratic tradition, because the land was so vast. Lawyers did not have to be qualified because they would have to go back east: a few old law books would do. The law became a bit flexible: How could some wealthy people in Maryland understand conditions in Arizona? The folk in Arizona wanted lawyers who understood their plight and generally looked at the world the same way they did. This is real democracy and who can say they were wrong?
So why should someone be paid because he has an exclusive right of audience? He should only be paid if he's any good. The answer is not to stop payment but to downgrade the place of lawyers in the system. Don't ask me how. If I knew, I'd be a lawyer.
(At least in Western society.)
