To him, the legal profession did not seem any more independent or exalted than the plumbing trade. That was the analogy that occurred to him when he thought about becoming a lawyer. People hired you to fix things in their lives—wills, divorces, collecting on bad debts—the same way they’d hire a plumber to fix clogged pipes and leaky faucets in their houses. Working in a big law firm would be even worse. You’d do the dirty work of the rich and powerful.

Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action, loc. 222