One factor is simply the overlawyered society. The times have a liberal bent, so we see lawyers on TV, helping the poor, Atticus Finch, blah blah. Everyone wants to be a lawyer. Nobody wants to be an inventor, engineer, scientist, plumber, manufacturer, etc. Production-minded conservatives don’t go to law school. Leviathan-lovers do. And they get full encouragement from the liberal professors. We have a million-person army of lawyers pushing paper to and fro, moving money from Bank Account A to Bank Account B, and much of serves to simply crimp innovation.

Solution: more TV shows and movies about heroic and dramatic business builders, stuff makers and cancer researchers. If you want human conflict, show how these folks have to bravely battle nettlesome lawyers and government regulators. Exciting! A duplicitious plaintiff’s attorney tried taking down an upstart drug company, but they not only beat him back, they brought a livesaving drug to market to boot! And as it turns out, that very lawyer’s LIFE WAS SAVED BY THE DRUG!

Now that’s drama.