This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, July 26, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Occupational licensing often keeps otherwise qualified people on the sidelines of the economy.

In Tennessee, the licensing of certain lawyers in the state may well target part-time

attorneys, and that often means working mothers.

Cato's Vanessa Brown Calder details how this particular hurdle stands in the way of

flexible work and competitive markets. Occupational licensing is a sort of a big cause

for people who love liberty. It's shocking when you learn the fraction of the

American workforce that is required to have a government permission slip in order to do a job even if everyone around them might agree

that they're good at it. You wanted to talk a little bit about this specific area

which is legal licensing that is licensing

lawyers which of course is a type of license for an occupation what is the state of Tennessee doing with licensing attorneys?

Just backing up a little bit. I think that people know, sort of generally in general terms, even non-lawyers know that, you know, the licensing

process is pretty arduous for lawyers.

Lawyers are licensed by the state that they practice in and lawyers in order to

qualify and be admitted to practice they have to have a certain type of

education have to have graduated from you know a law school. They have to also take the bar exam and what non-lawyers

may not know about the bar exam is that this test isn't typically something that you just come out of law

school and take and just breeze through. It's often something that requires

months to prepare for even for people that have just recently graduated from law school.

And I have a friend actually who described taking out around a $10,000 loan

to cover the expenses of foregone income and exam preparation materials and exam

...