Anon Channels Montesquieu

My friend Anon offers a rule of thumb for law specialization: my specialty is difficult and important and yours can be handled pretty much by a paralegal.

Turns out he was anticipated by Montesquieu:

Il n’y a pas jusqu’aux plus vils artisans qui ne disputant sur l’excellence de l’art qu’ils ont choisi: chacuns s’elève au-dessus de celui qui est d’une profession différente, à proposition de l’idée qu’il s’est faite de la supériorité de la sienne.

Les hommes ressemblent tous, plus ou moins, a cette femme de la province d’Erivan, qui, ayant reçu quelque grâce d’un de nos monarques, lui souhaita mille fois, dans les bénédictions qu’lle lui donna, que le ciel le fit gouverneur d’Erivan.

That is:

There is no class of artisans so mean that the practioners will not assert the excellence of their chosen craft; everyone elevates himself over those of a different profession, devoted to the notion of the superiority of his own.

People in this respect resemble the woman from the province of Erivan who, having received recognition from one of our monarchs, undertook to desire, a thousand times, in the benedictions she offered, that the heavens might make him governor of Erivan.

--Montesquieu, Lettres Persanes, Lettre XLIV

(Translation, my own, and pretty slapdash, too)