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Honsoku -> RE: Lawyer Hatred (8/12/2008 9:38:24 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: candystripper
quote:
ORIGINAL: Honsoku
1: Because no one ever wants to need a lawyer.
My family and friends have had free access to my services since I first graduated, though some have foregone the offer. Many have been delighted to tell some annoying person that unless the were made whole rather quickly they'd get their lawyer involved. It can be empowering to feel that among your arsenal of problem-solving techniques, you have free and high quality legal services at your disposal, at all times. When I sent my UM away to college, my friend who lived in the city she was moving to gave her his card, with all his numbers on it and permission to call any of them 24/7....I knew she'd never, ever be left by the side of the road facing police wihout that card in her wallet.
I agree...no one wishes to be in distress...but most of realise that our lives or the lives of those we love may be at some point. It is a source of comfort to know someone will fight for you, if ever you need it.
2: The effective ones tend to exemplify personality traits that people hate. The most effective ones are nitpicking, anal-retentive, argumentative, stubborn, weaselly buggers.
I was highly effective, and so were my friends. Some are highly successful, opening their own firms or rising to great heights within an organization. It is a myth that a bad personality will aid a lawyer in succeeding....getting along with people is actually quite necessary.
3: The ones that get the most attention get it for all the wrong reasons. I don't know of many (if any) lawyers who are famous for their work in law, just infamous.
What about Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Povery Law Center?
Clarence Darrow, defender of the teacher who dared teach evolution in the 1920's?
But in the main you are right...television has made stars of lawyers who represent defendants like O. J. Simpson. It is very hard not to demonize the lawyer who successfully defends such a repugnant and obviously guilty man.
4: They are horrendously expensive.
I never charged more than $75 an hour to make myself more accessible to the general public. A great deal of my work was done for free...and what was done on salary was very poorly compensated if you factor in the 70 to 80 hour weeks I actually worked. Most bar associations require lawyers to either work a certain number of hours free of charge or else contribute funds towards the Legal Aid Society. Addiitionally, client funds in all states I'm familiar with must be kept in special accounts in which any interest paid is sent to the Bar Association for funding the Legal Aid Society.
Show me another profession with a similiar requirement.
The fact is, most people are unfamilar with legal matters and are taken aback at the price of legal services.....but the market is fierce and costs are commensurate with what a lawyer can 'command' by dint of his proficiency and reputation.
It is no more ridiculous to pay a lawyer $150 an hour than it is to pay $150 for a visit to the family MD or dentist.
5: They profit off the misfortune of others.
Not neessarialy. Many lawyers have what are known as 'office practices' and never make court appearances. They draw up wills, provide tax planning advice, rearrange assets to protect an elderly person from having to 'spend down' all their assets before becoming eligible for Medicaid, etc. In short, they enhance a client's security and well-being.
As for those who do litigate....they are not the CAUSE of the misfortune...and traumatic as it may be to be arrested...it would certainly be much more traumatic to be imprisioned because you were unable to obtain legal counsel.
I'm not bothering to try to interspace my response into colored text, as it is a royal pain. You will just have to use your intelligence to figure out what is in response to what.
I forgot to mention another reason people don't like lawyers: having the threat of a lawsuit/legal problems being used wholesale as a bludgeon.
Never heard of Morris Dee or Clarence Darrow. I would wager that most people haven't either. As this is the best you could put forth, I rest my case.
Think about the disconnect you just exposed. You think that $75 an hour is cheap. That is more than most people make in a day. Just because you are an exception doesn't change the general rule. Just because you don't charge your friends and family doesn't mean that is the experience of the vast majority of people. Remember that most people don't fall into the category of being your friend or a member of your family. When it comes to cost, very few people pay salaries out of their personal money, so the strife of salaried lawyers isn't relevant to them. How many of your friends are also lawyers? Or better yet, out of all your friends, how many are *not* lawyers (and really your friends?)?
Why do we need these tax lawyers, estate lawyers, etc? Because of other lawyers making the law so obtuse and unaccessible to the layperson. So understand if I fail to express love and glee over this.
They may not be the cause of misfortune, but by George do plenty of them enable it and profit off of it.
No one likes to think that they have bad personality traits. Yours appears to be that you ask people to explain why they think something and then proceed to argue with them about how why they think is wrong. See: argumentative. While doing that, you never really countered the gist of what I said, just mentioned that there were exceptions. See: nitpicking. Then you tried to say that because lawyers are *required* to do some good things that I shouldn't think poorly of them (why do you think that those requirements are there in the first place?). See: weaselly. Your first instinct is probably going to be to fire off another message and argue with me some more. See: stubborn. That is 4 out of 5 traits I said were required to be an effective lawyer (which you say you are). All that is left is to find out if you are an anal-retentive bugger or not and I doubt that you want to participate in that test.
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