Good Enough
I just finished reading an article in the New York Times blaming the high cost of law school on the onerous requirements set by the sole ratifier of legal qualifications, the American Bar Association. In an hour or so, I will head over to a CVS walk-in clinic to get a diagnosis for some (likely cold related) chest pains I have, and hopefully some accompanying medicine. 
The law profession and the medical profession are two extremely high cost fields. Students of either discipline must spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and untold apprentice hours learning the intricate details of their trade. When they finally are deemed fit to practice, they are licensed by a central body and allowed to "serve the public", again at an astronomical cost.
The irony is that many of the needs that the public are much simpler than the complicated licensing procedure leads one to believe. Just as I don't need a brain surgeon to bandage my stubbed toe, I probably don't need a fully licensed lawyer to prepare basic divorce papers. Unfortunately, however, there are few gray areas when it comes to medicine and law. The intentions are good -- given what's at stake (life and liberty) the licensing bodies want to make sure that the public gets fully qualified staff.
Inevitably, however, this "one size fits all" approach needs to change. The legal and medical professions, in order to keep costs down and best serve the world, need to develop a pyramid structure where basic issues can be dealt with by people with less (and less expensive) training, and more complicated situations are escalated to better-qualified (and more expensive) specialists. We already see the beginnings of this happening in both fields -- walk-in clinics staffed by nurse practitioners licensed to write some prescriptions can efficiently handle fevers and aches without involving a doctor. Online services like LegalZoom can sell boilerplate documents for certain basic legal structures and situations. As a result of these initiatives, thousands more have access to basic care and eager entrepreneurs have one less cost and barrier.
As our country faces escalating health care and tuition costs, as well as a widening gap between classes, the solution isn't adding more laws and limits or fixing prices. The solution lies in the question "what is good enough?", and allowing both suppliers (eg, medical and legal professionals) as well as consumers decide the level of specialization they need.
