Attorney discipline, the quality of legal systems and economic growth within the United States

Abstract

The quality of the legal system is of fundamental importance within any society, but the economics of attorney discipline (AD) have not been studied empirically. We rank states by AD resources, complaints, and convictions, and explore the impact of AD on economic growth. The American Bar Association’s annual Survey on Lawyer Discipline (SOLD) reports complaints and charges regarding lawyer misconduct, the caseload per disciplinary attorney, and each state’s budget for attorney discipline. We develop five measures of attorney discipline and a composite measure. We consider low levels of AD to indicate less effective legal systems. Since prior literature finds a relation between corruption and state economic growth, we assess the ability of our AD variables to explain growth, finding that states with lower levels of AD experience slower growth. To our knowledge, no other study has considered the SOLD data to evaluate the quality of attorney discipline, or its impact on growth. One implication is that legal ethics training adds value to society.