Letter: Legal leeches
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Your obituary of US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (26 January) quotes his mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston, who 'insisted that we be social engineers rather than lawyers'.
Houston, the grandson of slaves, is largely unknown today but was a pre-eminent legal educator who pioneered the idea of using the Constitution to promote racial justice. Houston's message to his law-school students, that there are only two kinds of lawyers, was actually more pointed. He said: 'A lawyer is either a social engineer or a parasite on society.'
Yours faithfully,
JOYCE PLOTNIKOFF
Institute of Judicial
Administration
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham
26 January
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