This should be called "why the world hates assholes".

Getting a JD doesn't make you more or less of one; it just gives you a somewhat different toolkit for behaving however it was you wanted to behave anyway.

The world hates lawyers because they are Takers, not Creators. Plain and simple.

They use ambiguous, complicated, poorly written laws (basically every civil law on the books) to bully others and take what is not theirs.

No, their clients do that. Some lawyers may not discourage it, but ultimately they are bound to do what clients ask of them.

Yeah, don't hate the mob enforcer - hate his boss. (sarcasm)

I wouldn't expect a business school professor, JD or not, to have any clue about state consumer protection law.

I would expect an MBA to bluster on in an area in which he was clearly out of his depth.

The HBS prof got it "right" in that he pushed for triple damages which is the highest plausible outcome of this case and has the potential to scare the defendant. This is the kind of "right" that the HBS prof's consulting clients (he consults in advertising fraud) want, not the actual kind. This article is practically an ad for the prof.

Also, to clarify the prof mentioned specifically that triple damages was a result of the fact that this was a willful and knowing violation. So in fact he's actually absolutely right to demand 2-3 times damages. This article is wrong about him being wrong

More general reasons:

In an adversarial system, unless both sides get a vigorous attorney, the system doesn't work. In a non-adversarial (or inquisitorial (not that one!)) system, unless the courts give a lot of time to people who are probably guilty and generally scummy, the system doesn't work.

Unwritten laws are inconsistently applied as a result of gross bias and favoritism. If you have an unwritten law which is consistently applied, you have a written law. See below.

Written laws can be gamed. If you have a written law that can't be gamed, you actually have an unwritten law. See above.

We want it to be fairly difficult for the state to punish people. The kinds of people who tend to be accused of serious crimes aren't the kinds of people most of us here would invite out for drinks. Therefore, we see a lot of people we wouldn't associate with getting the kind of benefit of the doubt we don't give to waitstaff at a restaurant.

The system working as intended makes for lousy fiction, unless it somehow involves someone getting off on a technicality. The fact the technicality was written into the Constitution or is otherwise fundamental to a good, orderly, and just society gets... elided a bit.

And, of course, there are a lot of assholes in the world, there are a lot of JDs in the world, there are no real anti-asshole filters on the "earn a JD" process, so there are a lot of assholes with JDs in the world.

Can you ever have too many lawyers? They're a self supporting industry that creates its own work.

From the point of view of the law profession? Probably not.

From the point of view of demand for their services? Again, probably not, for the reason you mention (creates its own work).

From the point of view of the overall welfare of society, though? Certainly you can have too many.

Almost every other profession over saturates the market. Lawyers can always find/create more work.

They can be similar to bankers who provide no value to society but siphon off money.

Credit Slips is a great blog, highly recommended.

Then there's guys like this who manage to stain the Harvard grad and lawyer stereotype in one:

http://www.boston.com/food-dining/restaurants/2014/12/09/har...

That's the precise situation the linked post is about, did you read it before commenting?

That's the same guy.