Alan Murray writes today in The Wall Street Journal about lawyers-as-CEOs.  He says:

There’s clearly some sense to this. Lawyers are trained to foresee risk, making them well-suited for times of trouble. Perhaps more important, they understand what it means to be a fiduciary, acting in trust on someone else’s behalf. Messrs. Nardelli [Home Depot] and McKinnell [Pfizer] clearly failed to grasp that basic tenet of public-company leadership.

Mr. Murray also quotes Philip Howard, who wrote The Death of Common Sense and often opines about what he sees as excesses of the civil justice system:

We’re more concerned with legal compliance than with getting the job done. If you have an economy where people circle the wagons and try and prevent anything bad from happening, the economy will suffer.

Messrs. Murray and Howard don’t necessarily hold opposing views about the utility of lawyers as corporate chief executives.  But Mr. Murray does manage to express his perspective with a ray or two of sunshine.  Atta boy, Alan.