All around the world, lawyers generate more hostility than the members of any other profession—with the possible exception of journalism. But there are few places where clients have more grounds for complaint than America.

During the decade before the economic crisis, spending on legal services in America grew twice as fast as inflation. The best lawyers made skyscrapers-full of money, tempting ever more students to pile into law schools. But most law graduates never get a big-firm job. Many of them instead become the kind of nuisance-lawsuit filer that makes the tort system a costly nightmare.

     There are many reasons for this. One is the excessive costs of a legal education. There is just one path for a lawyer in most American states: a four-year undergraduate degree in some unrelated subject, then a three-year law degree at one of 200 law schools authorized by the American Bar Association and an expensive preparation for the bar exam. This leaves today’s average law-school graduate with $100,000 of debt on top of undergraduate debts. Law-school debt means that they have to work fearsomely hard.

     Reforming the system would help both lawyers and their customers. Sensible ideas have been around for a long time, but the state-level bodies that govern the profession have been too conservative to implement them. One idea is to allow people to study law as an undergraduate degree. Another is to let students sit for the bar after only two years of law school. If the bar exam is truly a stern enough test for a would-be lawyer, those who can sit it earlier should be allowed to do so. Students who do not need the extra training could cut their debt mountain by a third.

    The other reason why costs are so high is the restrictive guild-like ownership structure of the business. Except in the District of Columbia, non-lawyers may not own any share of a law firm. This keeps fees high and innovation slow. There is pressure for change from within the profession, but opponents of change among the regulators insist that keeping outsiders out of a law firm isolates lawyers from the pressure to make money rather than serve clients ethically.

     In fact, allowing non-lawyers to own shares in law firms would reduce costs and improve services to customers, by encouraging law firms to use technology and to employ professional managers to focus on improving firms’ efficiency. After all, other countries, such as Australia and Britain, have started liberalizing their legal professions. America should follow.

答案精析：根据题干中的reform of the legal system可定位至第四段前两句。前两句指出制度的改革对律师和客户都有好处，合理的建议早就被提出来过，但随后第二句中的but表示转折，指出律师行业的相关政府机构太过于保守，不敢实施改革。由此可知，法律制度改革的障碍来自僵硬化的行业管理机构，故正确答案为B。

错项排除：第四段首句提到制度的改革对律师和客户都有好处，但并未提及律师和客户的态度，A项内容无中生有，故排除。原文提到律师资格考试确实非常严格，但并没有说明严格的考试阻碍了法律行业制度的改革，而且第四段第五句也提到希望让学生可以提前参加考试，这是推进制度改革的措施之一，C项与原文内容不符，故排除。原文在第五、六段提到non-lawyers，但这并非指的就是non-professionals，而且原文说的有关non-lawyers的内容是和律师事务所股份相关的问题，文中并没有提及非专业人士的尖锐批评，故D项错误。

长难句分析：Sensible ideas have been around for a long time, but the state-level bodies that govern the profession have been too conservative to implement them.

本句由but连接的两个并列分句构成，but表示转折意义，时态是现在完成时。第一个分句为简单句，主系表结构，for a long time作时间状语。第二个分句的主语为the state-level bodies，后面that引导的定语从句修饰前面的主语，用于描述政府相关部门的特征，表语是too…to…结构，表示“太……而不能……”。

句意为：合理的建议已经存在很长时间了，但是管理这一行业的国家相关管理部门太过保守而无法实施这些建议。