Arcane disciplines versus real value

Couldn't help but notice this one over at SurvivalBlog.

I almost laughed at the absurd notion that this asshole lawyer was making; that without a lawyer, it was somehow impossible to build a bridge, or a road, because people might squabble about who owns what, and it was up to him, or another lawyerly asshole like him, to, as he puts it, "[find] ways and developed systems that substitute contracts for wars, so that human ingenuity can be harnessed through commerce and its fruits can be made more secure."

Which is odd, simply by the reasoning he puts forth in the previous paragraph;

"...if a time-traveling lawyer from Abe Lincoln's era were dropped into the middle of a modern courtroom, after recovering from the shock of the modern technology of law and the presence of women, he would find most of the basic principles familiar. After all, commercial and property transactions and dispute resolution have been going on for thousands of years, and the law has been distilling its wisdom on how to deal with such transactions all along..."

...which means that the conditions for such circumstances are well known, and probably even to us plebians who, ya know, know how to frikkin' read a contract. It's NOT rocket science, and drafting such things DOES NOT entail the use of a fucking leech who puts his hand out for writing a few paragraphs on who owns what and when.

Fucking moron.