Heh, clearly not the best description, gotta stop HNing at 4am. ;)

His main point was that legal costs are out of control. One of the mentioned factors was that in the U.S., law school is 3 years, unlike most international law schools which are 2, and how it's sad that most law school graduates are unable to afford their own services. He discusses how the attorneys' self-imposed ethical rules contribute to the expense and prevent things that would improve the accessibility of legal services.

I'll post a transcript of his answer when I get back to my workstation. On phone now.

EDIT:

Video link from the hearing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWRzx3gZK7M&start=14409

Here's the transcript of his entire response to the question posed by Senator Cornyn according to C-SPAN's closed captioning (which is the only place I could find it recorded; lines and capitalization quickly corrected, please excuse any errors):

> I really appreciate this opportunity to be talking about
> these things. Because I -- these I care about and can talk
> about as a judge. I wrote that article in conjunction with
> some input from a lot of wonderful people, so I can't take
> total credit for it. And I thanked them. My point there was
> three fold. Starting with the fact that too few people can
> get to court with legitimate grievances today. That's a
> fact. Too few people can get lawyers to help them with their
> problem. I teach young folks law, who leave law school
> unable to afford their own services. Think about that.
> think about that. And hundreds of thousands of dollars in
> debt. How do they go be "Main Street" lawyers? How do they
> help people who need legal services? And I pointed to three
> potential sources of problems where we lawyers maybe should
> look internally rather than blame others for the problem.
> there is plenty of blame to go around. I'm not a big blame
> guy. I am a look inside guy. What do I see in my profession.
> three thing I pointed to, first, our own ethical rules. It
> is a very unusual profession where we're allowed to regulate
> ourselves. It is quite an extraordinary privilegefvilege
> privilege, usually the legislature. Lawyers regulate
> themselves. And do all of our rules help clients or do some
> of them help us more than they help our clients? And i
> point to some that for instance in regarding the
> unauthorized practice of law, why is it you have to be a
> lawyer to help parents with disabled children and
> administrative proceedings to seek relief under idea? Was it
> an example I pointed to. Why is it that every time certain
> companies that provide online legal services for basic
> things get sued every time they move into a new state? Why
> is it I can go to walmart and get my hair, teeth, eyes,
> taken care of, but I can't get a landlord tenant contract
> drawn up. Those are all results of our ethical rules. I'm
> not sure whether they're worth the price that we pay for
> them. It is estimated I heard I can't verify it that our
> ethical rules result in $10 billion a year surplus to
> lawyers and clients every year. That was one. Number two
> was our own rules and procedure which yield cases like the
> one we talked about, took 25 years to resolve. That's
> wrong. That's wrong. Should be able to resolve cases in
> less time than it takes from my law clerks to be born,
> raised and get through law school. And the third thing i
> pointed to was our legal educational system. Where we have
> three years of post graduate education for everybody who
> wants to -- who have anything to do with lawyering. The
> best lawyer in the country in this history came from your
> state, senator durbin, he didn't ever go to law school. And
> he always said the best way to become a lawyer, read the
> books. Still true. And other countries around the world
> don't have three years of post graduate legal education.
> this is where justice scalia and I -- a disagreement, he
> thought three years was necessary for everybody. I'm not
> convinced. In england where I studied, you could become a
> lawyer through three years of an undergraduate degree or one
> year as a post graduate degree followed by a lot of on the
> job practical training. I wonder whether all that debt is
> worth it. Whether it induces people to pick jobs they have
> to pick to pay their debt ranger than serve the people they
> like to serve. Those are the problems I talk about in that
> article.