> If you had 1 lawyer per 100 people in 1800 and you had 1 lawyer per 100 people today, I don't see a scaling problem with population. [...] Why do we need more lawyers per person today than 10 years ago?

How many more laws are there? Being a lawyer is like 90% reading and collating documents to filter out relevant information. We have a lot more law and a lot more documentation to sift through these days.