Don’t eat that! Bury the durn thing.
Lawyers average about 130 on IQ tests — 30 points above the norm. Congratulations!
The average translates into higher income for you. But does it also mean greater wealth?
Probably not, according to a new study by Jay Zagorsky at the Center for Human Resource Research, Ohio State University. The study’s abstract says:
Regression results suggest no statistically distinguishable relationship between IQ scores and wealth [for the general population, not just lawyers]. Financial distress, such as problems paying bills, going bankrupt or reaching credit card limits, is related to IQ scores not linearly but instead in a quadratic relationship. This means higher IQ scores sometimes increase the probability of being in financial difficulty.
The last sentence may explain why many terrific lawyers keep working into their septuagenary — they didn’t bury enough acorns, can’t find the ones they did bury, or spent their acorns on Ferraris and their new admirers. It may also solve the mystery of why we see amassment of large estates by some of our profession’s lesser lights.
The knack for burying acorns where the interrer can find them and the energy to dig them up seem to Blawgletter a combination of aptitudes that don’t necessarily arise from the same gene that bestows brilliance. And, yet, we believe — with the fervence of necessity — that smart people can learn.
Our advice, which we aspire to take: do the squirrel thing. Unless, of course, you don’t like acorns.
Barry Barnett
