There's an old joke whenever some new law is passed: “That's a ‘full employment act’ for lawyers!”  Hilarious, right?  In law school, I heard different professors make this crack in reference to the Bankruptcy Code, New York State trusts & estates laws, and the Internal Revenue Code.  Lately, amid the meltdown, the “full employment” meme pops up in articles on everything from emergency legislation to the interplay between lawyers and various economic phenomena.  To wit:

• $700 billion bailout bill
• The prospect of major corporations suing financial institutions
• The Truth in Lending Act
• The backdating scandal of 2007
• The subprime collapse
• The quest for a global RFID standard (You know, the radio-frequency identification used in enterprise supply chain management)