Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 2, 1992 TAG: 9202020098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE and GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
LIGHTENING LEGISLATIVE CHORES A BIT
It's not that Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville, hates all lawyers.He's not advocating the action of Shakespeare's memorable Dick the Butcher, who said, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
"When you need a lawyer, you really need one," Marye concedes.
The problem is, we have more than we need, he argues. And Virginia law schools keep cranking out new ones at a record pace.
"There's one lawyer for every 330 people in Virginia," Marye said. "If you want to sleep tonight, don't think about that. It's getting so you need a lawyer to go right around with you to protect you from other lawyers.
"They had an opening for a receptionist at a state agency recently and two lawyers applied," he said.
Marye wants the legislature to make the state's three law schools study the "supply of and demand for lawyers in the commonwealth." He has introduced a resolution to that effect, which awaits action from the Senate Rules Committee. The panel is headed by Sen. Stanley Walker, D-Norfolk, "a non-lawyer," Marye notes with a nod and devilish smile.
"I know I make light of this and offend some lawyers and I don't mean to," Marye said. "But I just think it's time for the law schools to evaluate what they're doing."
Virginia has about 16,000 practicing lawyers, about the same number as Japan, he said.
And Marye, who retired from the military to a farm he runs at the foot of Christiansburg Mountain, has had an eye cocked toward lawyers for some years. He voted against creating the law school at George Mason University a few years ago and since has tried to have its funding stripped from the budget.
Throughout Friday's rambling House floor session, Speaker Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, had a hard time keeping order. Delegates eager to shed the mantle of government for the weekend moseyed around the chamber and chatted like restless schoolkids.
Moss tried several times to gavel them into submission, but with little success.
Toward the end of the day, Del. James Scott, D-Merrifield, rose to present a bill that would make "a modest contribution to campaign disclosure," as he put it.
"It would require," Scott said as his colleagues yammered around him, "parental notification if any member of this House files for reelection."
Suddenly the House was silent. Wandering delegates stopped in their tracks, unsure of what they had just heard.
Scott stood straight-faced, until the joke sank in. "Sorry, that was the wrong bill," he muttered.
A relieved House broke into laughter, and Moss nodded in admiration. "I would say to the gentleman," he said, "that was better than me hitting the gavel."
Moss clearly enjoys his new role as speaker, and the status that goes with it. No longer is he "Mr. Moss" or "The gentleman from Norfolk," the fashion in which most delegates refer to one another; he is "Mr. Speaker."
Usually.
Last Monday, several delegates who also are lawyers were locked in a grinding debate about a bill to post streambeds against hunting and fishing. The bill eventually failed, but only after prolonged verbal fisticuffs over riparian rights and common law and so on.
In the middle of one point-counterpoint, Alexandria Democrat Bernard Cohen forgot he wasn't in court and said to Moss, "I would totally agree with the gentleman, Your Honor. . . . uh, Mr. Speaker."
The House erupted in laughter, but Moss stuck out his chest like a king. "Either way," he pronounced, "is acceptable."
Moss seemed so pleased by the mix-up that Roanoke Democrat Clifton Woodrum couldn't resist going one better a few minutes later: "I thank Your Majesty," he said.
Moss didn't correct him.