Maximum Hours Laws and Attorneys

[David Bernstein]

For those of you who have been teaching Lochner for many years, I was
wondering how the increased expectations of hours at law firms has effected
your students' view of the case.  After all, young lawyers at big firms work
well more than 60 hours per week.  It's hard to see this as a case of
exploitation, since the young lawyers are extremely well-paid.  Moreover,
there seems to be little demand for firms that pay less but require less
work, except among parents with young children (especially, judging from
anecdotal evidence, mothers) who arrange part-time schedules.  But if there
was large-scale demand from top students to work less for less money,
assumedly at least some firms would implement this deal to get these
students.  I should think all of this would make it easier for law students
to see why the bakers in Lochner may have wanted to work more than sixty
hours, and why it was an interference with their liberty to prevent them from
doing so (putting aside the claim that the laws benefitted some types of
bakeries at the expense of others).  Does it?

David E. Bernstein
Associate Professor
George Mason University
School of Law
http://mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste