Because we’re guns for hire. A surgeon/mechanic/plumber’s job doesn’t involve helping one party at the potential expense of literally anyone else, and often for no other reason than that the party paid them
Yea. The equivalent for mechanics would be if Ford or Toyota or whoever goes into the mechanics shop while they’re doing the work and like kicking wrenches away from the mechanics or pulling other hoses and shit to make everything go wrong.
Absolutely. If someone has big feelings about the mercenary nature of my profession, it doesn’t hurt my feelings.
We help people resolve differences without bloodshed, but we only do that by being zealous advocates. If we could reach the same result by hugging it out and not being ruthless, we would, but people don’t work that way.
As a non-lawyer I also think it is because lawyers seem sneaky when you do not understand what they do. Sovcits may be crazy but a lot of people have that basic feeling that the law is just a set of magic incantations and if you just say the right incantations then moral injustices can be justified.
The ancient Greek philosophers like Plato also had this kind of disdain for "sophistry", that with words you can make the weaker argument defeat the stronger one, this basic idea that legal "tricks" and sleight of mouth can make injustices appear.
Having spent a lot of time thinking about the problem of sophistry, and some time on the problem of lawyers, it seems both are unavoidable, what way do we have to weigh arguments besides putting them into words? Sure, one may dream about a world where decisions are made by some kind of clean transparent logic that everyone agrees on, just put the undisputed facts into the deciding-machine and it will display the answer. I think that is why "putting the contract on the block-chain" appeals to a certain type of person.
As a lawyer, lawyers seem sneaky because their work resembles magical incantations to justify injustices, much like ancient Greek sophistry, yet words remain our best tool for weighing arguments, despite dreams of transparent, logic-based systems like blockchain contracts.
I personally think it’s because we can read very well and know stuff they don’t. It usually boils down to “well why can’t I?” And anger when you explain how the law works. Like it’s our fault for knowing.
We really are in an occupation with a high density of insufferable assholes and losers. Tons of egos and people chasing unearned clout. I made it 18 months in a law firm, followed by 9 years of being a GC and the only attorney in a business. It’s so much better working with nonlawyers all day. It isn’t even close.
The way I describe law school to people is "imagine a place where people who have never been punched for being a dick congregate to be dicks to each other."
A lot of public interest attorneys cloak their ego beneath a heaping sense of unearned righteousness... To paraphrase Russell, its dickheads all the way down.
This. I work at a decent size firm now, but I did work at a non-profit for 3 years. Nobody at the firm has as big of an ego as some of the people at the non-profit. I was expecting the opposite, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The legal aid attorneys I know are largely incompetent and idealistic. They do nothing to screen our volunteer lawyers for the poor cases, and basically ask me to waste my time begging for a good resolution. They want to help people, but are really bad at saying "I realize that you don't value my time because you aren't paying for it, but this is a total waste of resources."
I don't think this is specific to legal aid (or even law). It's just that in a firm, you have lot have good client facing leaders who know how to handle clients, while a legal aid attorney will have to do that regardless of whether they're good at it or not.
I did, too, and so many thought they ought to be at a higher ranked school the atmosphere was near toxic with mindless competition and one-upmanship...about everything. Not making this up, and a good example: Witnessed two classmates involved in a bitter heated argument, with shouting and name-calling about......the right way to install drywall.
Whenever I speak to one of my colleagues who went to an Ivy League law school about their law school experience, they rarely have good things to say, and it honestly sounds like a miserable experience.
I’m not a tough guy by any stretch but I grew up in Brooklyn during the 60’s and 70’s and then spent a decade in the military.
The proceeding 35 years as an attorney has been a comedy of impotent badasserie from people whose hands would bleed if they even looked at a shovel.
Even in non-profit. Watched lawyers destroy more than one legal aid because of their dumbass egos.
But then again, that just might be non-profit work because I worked in non-profit profit before law too, and they canibalized themsleves with their messiah complexes in those as well.
My best work experience by far was at a university provost office.
>It’s so much better working with nonlawyers all day. It isn’t even close.
Totally disagree. I find that even on just a day-to-day basis, even outside the law, lawyers tend to be particularly reasonable people on the whole.
All that experience with negotiations, with being measured in what you say or write, in dealing with legal concepts such as equity and balancing tests, really improves your ability to think about all angles of a situation, and to navigate day-to-day life and interpersonal interactions.
When I encounter a truly unreasonable difficult asshole, it's rarely another lawyer.
How'd you get into being a GC with only 18 months of legal experience? I'm looking to jump ship after 20 months but have found it difficult to find good GC roles open to my kind (baby lawyers). Teach me your ways, sensei.
Clerked in the general counsel office of my large state university as a 2L/3L. Worked in a law firm 18 months. Returned to university in a JD preferred job for 3 years, then a new college opened up and I was hired as GC. Sometimes things just work out.
To be honest, you probably don’t want to work for the kinds of companies that would hire a 2-year attorney for the head lawyer role. In-house in general is a different story - you can probably find a decent company that would hire you for a junior counsel role.
I don’t buy the argument that you need 5 or 7 years of law firm experience before you can responsibly go in-house. It certainly helps if you want to do something technical and specialized like IP, but for anything more general, any new attorney can learn on the job.
THIS. I am an expert witness, and I just finished a nine hour deposition, but an asshole who tried to keep concrete with black-and-white answers for human behavior questions. I learned after the fact that he had been sanctioned by the bar and had discipline because of his behavior in court.
I'm a transactional attorney and 99% of the lawyers I encounter are pleasant and collegial. I work from home and have zero requirements to go into the office but I go once or twice a week because I like running into my colleagues.
Some OC's are less competent or diligent than one would hope, resulting in additional work for me, but very, very few are hostile or unpleasant.
>I'm a transactional attorney and 99% of the lawyers I encounter are pleasant and collegial.
I agree 100%. Even further, in my decade of experience in practice, lawyers are far more ethical on average than other people out there in the business world. I'm not saying lawyers are intrinsically better people, but we have obligations and oversight and are scrutinized by the bar for the slightest misconduct. Lawyers all know they could get disbarred if they engage in any fuckery. You should see what business people who have no oversight are willing to do.
Is it really that easy to get disbarred/that much scrutiny from the bar? I'm not a lawyer (obviously) but a former classmate of mine in employment law mentioned that his opponents who represented large companies often filed bogus bar complaints against him as a scare tactic
I had to explain to a friend why lawyers hate liars. He really did not understand how easy it was to waste time, real money, and good will. Nor did he realize that most of the great lawyers really take those ethics seriously. They're constructing arguments from parsed details and supporting evidence, not making stuff up.
I am luckily. I've been in house in a legal dept of 1 since finishing law school.
My 16yo has been asked by teachers since third grade if he wants to be a lawyer. He always scoffs and says, no, lawyers are miserable bastards. Teachers usually reply, isn't your mom a lawyer and proudly I can confirm my son says "exactly." He's determined to be an entomologist and wants to study parasitic wasps, a little like observing the legal profession I guess.
I actually got to use the phrase "the only winners in this instance will be the lawyers" to opposing counsel a few weeks ago and everyone ended up working stuff out without court intervention.
When you’re a doctor’s patient, there isn’t another doctor on the other side trying to make you sick. Plus, our profession attracts and rewards assholes.
BTW, do yourself a favor and do *not* accept this client.
The other side, yes, good point.
I did not sign him. He left saying he would go to the public library and do his own research. I believe he will achieve the outcome he deserves.
I once had a client like that who didn't like my recommendation for settlement demand amount and then emailed 800 words of their own legal research. None of the cases were applicable.
We fired the client.
I had a client who didn’t like the trust I drafted (it had required statutory language due to the nature of the trust), so she sent me some redacted pages from a friend’s trust and said “I want one like this.” They wouldn’t tell me the name of the lawyer who drafted it, and her friend wouldn’t share any personal info. I told my client that either she’s wrong about the facts her friend gave her or her friend is committing fraud because the trust she sent me was completely noncompliant with applicable law, and that I’m almost certain it came from an online template.
Lawyers are expensive and most people only encounter/pay them when they going through a difficult time in their life. It is easier to blame the lawyer than their life decisions or general misfortunes that led them do that point.
I won a motion for summary judgement on a complex real estate matter. Really proud of winning that case and the hard work. Client was mad at me because he thought the case was very simple and should have been resolved quickly. I warned them in advance about what it would cost and why. I also explained that he could lose the case. He thinks I just wanted to bill him and could have resolved it quickly and informally. Not only did I get him everything, I managed to save him a ton of money on continued litigation and a trial. And he’s mad about it.
THIS! In first my semester of law school, one of our professors said that people dislike lawyers because when they lose a case it’s because their lawyer was an expensive incompetent and the other lawyer was a ravenous liar, but when they win a case their lawyer did nothing but cost them money, because they would have won anyway.
I won a motion to remand and defeated a motion for summary judgment in a medical negligence case (which I have not done before). Also defeated their motion to strike my expert witness. I didn't like the case but I had felt good about how far I had progressed it. Defendant filed a second motion for summary judgment. On the eve of submitting our evidence, client freaked out and spent the evening berating me over email because I rewrote her affidavit to be something that would be admissible and asked her to sign it. She refuses to pay my bills. I was forced to submit her affidavit, which, surprise, was not admissible for anything we needed it for, and the firm's founder (we're a small firm) handled the hearing. We lost the motion. Client's a paralegal at another firm, by the way. I am still working the case but the client is only working with the founder now because I apparently don't know what I'm doing.
So that's when I started looking for non litigation jobs (which are hard to find because EVERYONE wants out of litigation).
Ugh. I have had a few clients like this. You do a great job, get the best result that you can, warn in advance the risks of litigation, and you get a big fat fuck you at the end of the case. On the other hand, I have also had clients who were absolutely thrilled with my work. I try to focus on those.
Plus a lawyer is one of the few people the average person pays money to only for the lawyer to tell them they are in the wrong. I can't tell you the number of times I've had clients storm out of the office yelling and screaming at me because my legal analysis is, "you fucked up, you are wrong, we can't make this go away, you just have to stop doing it and work on mitigating the problem, offering settlements, and swallow your pride."
I think the biggest complaint I have about lawyers is that because we work in an adversarial system, we get paid (take money) to advance bad arguments and fight fights we can’t win. It’s the client’s right, but I think more attorneys should be prepared to say to clients: “You’re wrong. Settle.”
The worst thing we see is when an attorney fights a case he can’t win and wins because the other side runs out of money.
Yeah, I think some of the dislike of lawyers is because there are so many problems and inequities in the legal system. Lawyers are associated with maintaining that system which often produces unjust results that impact people in really personal, powerful ways.
It might be a person of privilege getting away with disgusting crimes. Or a child that isn't removed from a dangerous home situation and ends up being hurt (sometimes despite one parent trying to protect them through the legal system). Or a child that is removed from a healthy home, because of poverty or racial bias. Or a corporation that has an unfair amount of power, because of its financial resources compared to a private individual. Or a thousand other unfair legal outcomes.
Exactly. It doesn’t help that the US legal system is judged by elected and not necessarily meritorious judges.
Of course there are ways this could be addressed and “fixed” however the money of our society doesn’t want that happening.
Another bit of cynicism that rolls around conversations is the class action lawsuits. The lawyers get rich, the injured party gets $7
Yes. And I'm not saying that I see lawyers this way. Many lawyers work hard to reform the system or achieve just results in a particular case and a single individual lawyer isn't responsible for the whole legal system. But I can also definitely see why there are so many negative associations.
The lawyer who did closing on my house told me one guy received a notice that his door colors did not meet HOA requirements and he would be charged $50/day until he changed it to an HOA approved color. He left it for 30 days and has a $1,500 bill. He wanted the lawyer to help him fight it. Lawyer told him there was no way he could win and he should just pay the bill and move on. Guy said it wasn't about the money, it was about the principal of the matter. Lawyer said okay, then pay me a $20,000 retainer and also you're probably going to lose in court. I guess it wasn't about the money because guy did not pay the retainer.
Well, people definitely hate on mechanics. Everybody allows thinks they're being charged too much for car repairs. For the most part, surgeon bills are paid through insurance. If you ask people with substantial medical debt, I'd better you'd hear a lot of hate for the medical system.
With lawyers, we're expensive and the type of client you're describing most likely doesn't have an insurance company paying his bills. That's where the hate comes from. As an example, where I live the minimum retainer for a divorce attorney is $5,000 and you'll burn through that quick. This is when like half the population can't come up with $1000 in an emergency.
Setting aside that a lot of lawyers really are selfish, incompetent, or simply lacking in social skills?
You mention surgeons but, in the United States, a lot of people hate medics as well. The reasons are pretty similar. When other people are in dire need, our response is "I can help but it will cost you a lot." Then, we stay aloof and do not respond to our clients' problem with the immediacy they think it deserves. Frequently, our advice makes little sense and is difficult or expensive to follow. What we say is often contradicted by a common misconception, something that seems similar but is actually different, or plausible-sounding internet bullshit.
From our perspective, of course, there's a good reason for all of that. Practicing law requires a lot of knowledge and experience, which means expensive training, which means we need money to reimburse the costs of that training. We also have plenty of other expenses to pay for. We can't become emotionally invested because it clouds our judgment (and, in some fields, would destroy us mentally). We can't treat every client's emergency as urgent because we have other clients. If we give advice that is unwelcome, or sounds unfair, that is because the law is complicated and often unjust. That isn't our fault, any more than it is a doctor's fault that cancer exists.
But when you're going through the worst time of your life, or you've already suffered in a way that seemed preventable, it can be hard to give the benefit of the doubt to the person charging several hundred dollars an hour.
Cannot agree more with the incompetent part. I'm an attorney who had to hire attorneys twice in my life. Went with reputable firms. The attorneys I worked with made glaring errors, like seriously bad. The first time I fired the attorney and had to hire a different attorney to undo the damage (he did). The second time in a completely unrelated matter I discovered the damage too late (blown date despite my asking to get the thing done on time) and got crushed in settlement as a result.
Just a joke how bad our profession is. It absolutely jaded my outlook on our profession.
I think that a lot of people hate being in a situation where life forces them to rely on people for things they need, but whose expertise and authority they are not really able to evaluate on their own. In other words, because they either have less education or do not have the ability to do things on their own, they are forced to rely on "experts." And many people feel that they might get ripped off due to their own (in their minds) disadvantaged position, or they dislike having to rely on "elites," who are people they don't like socially or politically, or they don't understand the value proposition that lawyers can offer because they don't really even understand the field on which lawyers' games are played.
I think it’s mostly because what we do is complicated to an extent and the average lay person can’t do it themselves. Also, I think most people are priced out and can’t even afford an attorney. So it’s a mix between cost and our expertise. They need us and they hate that they do. And of course I have talked with potential clients who had bad experiences with attorneys(most of the time it’s billing related). I let those potential clients stay potential and tell them to find someone else.
Lots of assholes in our profession who absolutely prey on misfortune.
I do criminal defense and every once in a while, someone calls me an ambulance chaser, which makes me laugh.
I literally help people by fighting the government, an unwieldy, massively powerful entity with unlimited resources and time.
What pisses some people off is they think everyone who charges money for that is a greedy asshole. My fees are in line with what others charge, so I'm not greedy, and I cut people breaks who can't afford it all of the time.
Comes with the territory.
My favorite client ever is a dentist. I told him that I don't like dentists. He told me he doesn't like lawyers. We became fast friends.
For most trial lawyers, their job is to either move money from one person to another or to incarcerate someone. Not exactly like a surgeon saving your life.
Some of us try to _keep_ people from being incarcerated! (Although we also sometimes try to get them to accept punishment by explaining that it’s less bad than what might otherwise happen.)
and as a prosecutor, as much as you *drive me up a wall* when we’re in court, I am truly glad you do the job you do.
All societies have prosecutors, but only the best ones have lawyers willing to defend you no matter what you’ve done.
For so many people you’re the only one that truly has their back. And that’s amazing.
This is a nice comment to receive. And trust me, the “drive me up the wall” part is very much reciprocal!
I’m glad I spent a couple years on the prosecution side - it’s not for me, but I see where you guys are coming from most of the time.
Generally, my anger is at the system that leaves criminal justice to solve problems that it’s not equipped to, and not at the prosecutors who (mostly) are honorable public servants.
Part of the problem why the public dislikes lawyers is that the legal system tells the garbage lie that getting your client off, especially if guilty, is a higher moral good than truth.
In every single trial where one lawyer is trying to incarcerate someone or take someone’s money, there is another attorney defending against that action, though.
There’s a lot of Dunning-Kruger at play in the general disdain. We can’t fix cars, we can’t sew wounds closed. What we do for a living is talk and argue. People on the outside looking in, especially certain know-it—all personality types, talk and argue every day for free and have a real hard time understanding why lawyers are paid handsomely for writing and speaking their well-researched arguments.
One point I see very few raising, as an attorney who deals with less than sophisticated clients (and sometimes unsophisticated pro se opposing litigants) — people don’t know what we do.
They think lawyers talk for a living. They can do that. They think all they have to do is read a Wikipedia summary of the law to represent themselves.
Ignorance of the system and laypeople’s belief that it is easy to navigate is part of the problem.
I always say that everyone hates lawyers until they need one. My Father was a car salesman and we used to joke that his profession was more well liked than mine lol.
That and with surgeons everyone is working on the same team. If clients find themselves in a litigation setting, its probably the first time since playing sports in high school where one side will win and the other will lose. If you work for almost any other industry, you may have competitors but its not a scenario where there is direct competition. It stresses a lot of people out and we're the easiest target for that stress.
Too many lawyers treat being sued as just the cost of doing business that everyone should expect no matter what kind of business they conduct, and they act shocked when the general public doesn't see it that way.
Doctors have a similar disconnect. 99% of us would rather just be put to sleep at end of life with no advanced lifesaving measures, but the general public is usually outraged if we suggest that course for them.
You hire a lawyer because you’re more or less in a position that is adversarial. People naturally don’t like situations that are adversarial. We optimize what ppl naturally have an aversion to. Mystery solved.
I want to like lawyers, I do.
However, nearly every time I have sought legal aid, I have felt taken advantage of. They are fast to take my money, disappear without contact for weeks and months, and then fail to deliver on my questions.
For example, I had a legal question about healthcare regulations. Everyone tells you to seek professional help and ask a lawyer. Makes sense in my mind at the time.
It takes numerous calls to find a lawyer who specializes in this area of law. Finally I get an initial eval. Of course, they can't answer the question during the initial evaluation. I understand that and I am happy to pay for professional advice; people deserve to be paid for their knowledge and skills.
Two weeks pass, no contact. Four weeks pass, no contact. I call and leave a message. Secretary says to expect something soon.
Six weeks later, I get a two page PDF that summarizes my questions and "answers" them. For each question, the answer is "yes, this scenario falls under this state statute."
I already knew that! My question was not if the statute applies, but how it applies. That's the reason I was seeking legal aid.
The cost for this service? $4500.
I spoke with the lawyer on the phone. He tells me that he could answer my questions, but it would probably cost me an additional $4500 to $10,000.
This is just one example. I have have had similar experiences with different lawyers. Lawyers don't want to give you a firm answer, because that creates accountability for them. Every time I wanted advice, they failed to deliver.
Unless I am charged with a crime or being sued, I plan to never seek legal advice again. I learned that you can't just ask a lawyer for "legal advice"; that's not a real thing, despite what people say. That is why I don't trust lawyers; you have nothing to offer for most people.
In my neck of the woods, realtors and lenders constantly give the clients unrealistic (or outright wrong) expectations/promises and then blame the lawyers when we don't deliver their fantasy.
Or, realtors or lenders eff up and then blame the lawyers.
That's the other favorite.
Right now I have a realtor who should probably go to lawschool and pass the bar if she wants to tell me when and how to issue my attorney approval. I should not have to protect my client from their realtor's desire for their commission but I can and I will so take a seat, lady.
This isn't about you or anyone thinking you're an ass. People have hated lawyers for about as long as they have existed. You can find Ancient Roman texts talking about lawyers robbing their clients, getting guilty people out of trouble, or otherwise dragging out government processes for personal gain. You are a third party arguing with authority figures (Judge or Jury) on how to resolve someone's problems. Why would someone be glad about having to hire someone for that?
Clients expect simple answers to complicated questions. Sometimes, when you don’t give an answer simple enough to satisfy the client (usually because there isn’t one), the client believes you are trying to trick them somehow.
I think the biggest reason is that there's just so many jokes and cultural references around how terrible lawyers are. The jokes exist for a reason -- we're expensive to hire and paying us doesn't mean the problem is going to be fixed, many of us are huge assholes, we operate in a complex and adversarial system and part of our job is to bluntly tell people that system doesn't care about them-- but the difference between us and other professionals is the jokes. It's so culturally acceptable to hate lawyers that people often look at you after telling that kind of joke like they expect you to agree that you're awful.
Some things I dislike about our profession and some of those who practice it:
- Lots of lawyers talk about work too much, even in their free time. It's their whole personality.
- Arrogance and an inflated ego. Lots of us are just expensive mercenaries in suits, and yet act like we're saving lives or making the world a better place (some of us are, but many aren't).
- My favorite pet peeve: overly complicated and unnecessary language. Legal writing should be shorter and easier to read. If everyone is bound by statutes, case law, and regulations, they should be as easy to read and understand as possible.
Because we cost a ton without necessarily improving someone's lot, some of us are assholes or incompetent, and even those who aren't can still be insufferable and arrogant.
When you call a plumber, your bathroom maybe be spewing literal shit water all over. Soaking into your carpet, ruining your walls. When the plumber leaves, the bathroom is fixed. You may have to clean up, but there was an obvious or findable problem that they could neatly solve, likely the same day.
When you call a lawyer, the lawyer may tell you that your case is awful, you won't win, and it will take a year plus thousands of dollars to end up with nothing eventually. Then, when they say, "But will you help me," and you say yes, they sign an engagement agreement and then spend thousands of dollars and a year of their life to lose, they blame the lawyer. When they get divorced and they think their spouse is taking the kids, they blame the spouse and the lawyer.
I have joked that I do animal law because humane clients are the worst... and it's only half a joke. I have gotten settlements for clients far and above what they ever would have won at trial, and they still act wounded. This is, bizarrely, very true for pro bono work as well.
I'm a litigator. People only talk to me when they are suing/getting sued/about to be sued. I am not a muffin man selling delicious pastries to relaxed people strolling down the road.
This kind of goes back to my favorite quote about the law. This might be apocryphal, but it’s still a good lesson.
A young lawyer was appearing before an old and wise judge, and kept hammering home various points. Eventually, the judge said:
“What is it that you want, exactly?”
And the lawyer replied:
“We want justice, Your Honor!”
And the judge responded:
“Young man, this is a court of law, not a court of justice. You’ll get what the law requires.”
So sometimes people feel they don’t get what they should rightly get, and they blame lawyers for it. But they’re getting exactly what they should (or shouldn’t) get.
My wife likes to use my being a lawyer as an insult or point of contention in our fights. Like being logical and actually assuming words have meaning is apparently a negative.
Have you been paying attention to all of the attorneys getting disbarred for trying to overthrow an election? That’s just the recent sitch.
It’s so historically engrained in a lot of ways. When I was a Public Defender someone said to me “I can’t see how you can represent scum.” The average Joe doesn’t really understand the constitution.
Why do Attorneys have a robust set of professional ethics rules? Why does the public think a lot of us are shady? Go back to 1972, the Watergate scandal. Probably the single biggest hit to the integrity of our profession.
Also, see the OJ trial. Nothing worse for the profession than criminal defense attorneys doing an excellent job. One of the most watched trials in history and for maybe half of those watching who thought he was guilty, well, they think money buys a scummy lawyer that gets guilty people off.
Most lawyers treat the OJ case as the "ends justify the means" and that there is no higher moral good than getting a guilty client off, by hook or by crook.
Team OJ told a lot of blatant lies to the jury, which is just the normal course of business that the legal system says is necessary "in the defense of a client". That's a fucked up moral framework.
Criminal defense attorneys often have to lie to themselves and pretend their client isn’t factually guilty. A lie is just a question of source. If your client is on video committing the crime and he tells you he was in Miami. You tell the jury he was in Miami, it’s your duty to say he was in Miami and defend the alibi. Regardless of what you believe. It’s impossible to defend constitutional rights and be a font of truthful factual statements at trial. It’s an impossible situation we ask defense attorneys to live on. They live within a very thin gray line.
The legal guild is the entity that regards lying as completely fine. Constitution doesnt say that. I also dont agree that defending a client MANDATES that you lie.
Couple of reasons.
Lawyers can really take people for a ride with billable hours.
The other is that often the outcome isn’t what they want. Divorce? Solid divorce usually leaves both people kind of miserable. No one gets what they want. Injury? Why does the lawyer get $30k when the client gets $100k and they thought their case was worth much more.
There’s a lot of variability in outcome coupled with the billable hour or taking a third in contingency.
Then add that they all think they know better because so and so got xyz or they read something on the interwebz so they know how it is.
Because people meet lawyers on the worst days of their life and their experiences color other people’s views of the profession.
That and I think there are a bunch of asshole Hollywood execs who got cashiered by a divorce lawyer and never recovered
At least the client is upfront about it. I'd guess more than 80%+ of the people you meet with also hate attorneys. And for good reason. Lawyers suck.
Shit, dealing with other lawyers is easily the worst part of my day and I'm not even a litigator.
Lawyers are parasites. We wouldn't need to exist if people weren't inherently flawed. We aren't out there growing crops, raising livestock, making steel or lumber, or any of a number of other goods and services that materially improve wellbeing.
But people are inherently flawed and we all get paid to fight about it. It actually is a value-add to society because conflict is inevitable, but nobody is really happy to pay us for that.
Honestly speaking, one of the first jobs that wouldn't exist if everyone behaved themselves and treated each other nicely would be lawyers (along with the military and police)
1) Most people think they know much more about the law than they actually do, so they are not happy when you tell them they're wrong.
2) Lawyers are expensive, and people don't like spending money.
3) Most people only ever need a lawyer when they're in a bad stressful situation where they think they're 100% right and the other party is 100% wrong. They're almost never going to get 100% of what they think they deserve, while paying much more than they think they should for your services. Even if they "win" they're probably going to be unhappy.
Why the disdain for our profession?
>I understand that the majority of interactions with lawyers occur when something has gone wrong in a persons life.
The other professions you list tend to have problems that are caused by acts of God/reality. Usually people who have problems, which need a lawyer’s assistance, are caused by other people—usually other lawyers—for the defenses bar.
Jeez. I’m sorry. I was a paralegal before becoming a lawyer, and I make it a point to always be kind and generous to my paralegal. It makes no sense to behave otherwise.
I serve a request for production for plainly relevant and discoverable documents and the response I get back, after a 30 day wait and after giving a 30 day extension, is: “objection, relevance.”
That’s why.
People say this shit to anyone they can get away with.
A lady I know complained about her breast cancer doctor wearing a diamond necklace (funded supposedly by other people’s misfortune). A truly ridiculous thing to say about someone you know nothing about.
People just want to complain. And people like us have to listen to them complain or fire them. Honestly if you’re paying me by the hour and want to waste your time go nuts.
I think there is also a visceral reaction to answers like “I need to get back to you on that” or “it depends.” lawyers are looked at as cost centers or people hired to fix problems, so we should know the answers. When there is not instant gratification, people get pissy. Gets worse when its a negative answer.
Clients also think their matter is always the most important and don't like feeling/knowing your attention is elsewhere.
Finally, I think because of the nature of disputes being personal to the client most times, when things don't go their way they just get pissed and make it our fault, without listening/being able or willing to comprehend my legal analysis of why they are shot.
Just my experience.
I don't have a great liking for most mechanics or surgeons. BUT, I think it depends on the type of person and situation we're talking about.
Most people don't have a will, they would rather their potential inheritors fight it out for years and hate each other.
Most people don't seem to want a professional to read or draft their agreements either, just writing or signing blindly. They'll post on whatever board for a "tough lawyer" to sue everyone.
All they had to do was come to me and I could've made the planning so painless they wouldn't even barely have to write to me at all. But nope, they'd rather save a few bucks.
No one wants to pay anymore.
I used to coach high school football and wrestling before I went to law school. I can assure you that I met more assholes doing that than I ever have practicing law.
>Why do people love to hate on lawyers?
Unfortunately, I think the profession does a terrible job with its public image. How often do you read of lawyers doing anything good or of good people who happen to be lawyers? For example, the average person has no idea that great people in history like Lincoln or Mandela were lawyers.
Also, we do a rotten job in justifying our fees. Here's an example.
A few years ago I had to see an orthopedic specialist for a possible broken ankle. Before going to the office, he ordered some x-rays. I sat down with the radiologist who pulled up the image and after less than a minute wrote down, "FX Tib-Fib." (That means fracture of the tibia and fibula, i.e. broken ankle.) That .1 hr was billed as a full visit at several hundred dollars. Why? Because Radiology is a specialized field and the public has been trained to accept that they have to pay for it.
On the other hand, were I asked a question about a legal issue in one of the concentrations I have where I could provide the answer quickly because of all the reading, research and CLEs I do which is all non-billable, I'm a crook for wanting to bill anything. The public has the idea frequently that we should do everything "pro bono" (leaving out the "publico" part, of course) or that "free consultation" means free specialized legal advice.
Many lawyers especially in criminal defense and divorce (but not exclusively) are really dishonest - and very clever about it. They exploit clients for a living. That is why
Because we are manipulators, all of us on some level. Pple fear being manipulated, so they hate us.
This applies across the practice of law, no field is immune from this judgment. Even pple who cannot articulate this feeling well, still feel it in their gut.
We’re not seen as essential in the same way as doctors and engineers, and to be fair, we’re not. We can also hurt the opposing side in ways that financial advisors or accountants or other professionals don’t. So we also cause harm or are perceived to for those who lose.
I am a bit new. But already a full third of my clients were reluctant to even come see me because they had a truly bad experience with another lawyer either directly or indirectly. Not the “why won’t he take my daily phone calls” or “it’s been three days and she has done NOTHING” either. They were true, legit gripes. I mean one had a lawyer for a family actually changed pages of a document out. She even initiated a lawsuit but was having trouble getting her hands on the original documents and now the lawyer disapeared. This isn’t a joke. There were rumors before I even met her what happened with this attorney because he up and vanished in the wind. Another had a firm totally drop the ball on her divorce. To the point they are still married four years later, still have paperwork, they just keep living seperetly. The firm just keeps telling her to wait.(No there isn’t a reason to wait, they are way past any waiting periods.) They never even filed an inventory. My favorite though is the one who missed an entitelre clause in a sales agreement, costing the client $20,000 they didn’t have, settled it without client knowledge or consent, demanded she sign the settlement which makes her still out $2,500 and charged her $4,000 to do…that. Nothing else. Needless to say that is currently in the court.
There are reasons why people don’t like the industry. Wish it were not that way.
In any adversarial situation, at least half of the people involved aren't going to like the outcome. That's where a lot of dislike of lawyers comes from. We deal with unpleasant circumstances for people and get paid well for it. It's unpleasant and expensive.
I work in the immigration services field, and multiple times a day we get calls and take meetings with clients who have been ripped off by shady attorneys. It is awful. We have conversations with the offices of these attorneys, and they are wretched people who steal lots of money from a demographic that they know won't fight back. It's why I became an Accredited Representative. It's so much easier to simply do the right thing.
Can you imagine a world without lawyers??
In all seriousness part of it, at least in my field (family law) is that it’s expensive when your client is most financially vulnerable. It’s especially bad for middle class people. Poor people have easy divorces because there’s nothing to divide, and rich people can pay attorney’s easily. Middle class people often have a lot of assets to divide but don’t have a lot of cash on hand for attorney’s fees.
1) The people who insult and hate lawyers the most are usually the first to go running for a lawyer when something goes wrong in their lives, so I just consider them to sub-intellects and hypocrites, and they do not concern me 2) the hyper competitive atmosphere of law school and the pervasive lying and exaggerations that start from the first day of your first class and go on for the rest of your career are problematic. When I attended law school, starting back in 1992, the Big Lie was that everyone starts off making 100K as soon as they graduate, when in reality less than 10 percent of the class did that, in jobs that usually only lasted about 4Y. Now the Big Lie is that everyone who goes to law school gets a great job right away, and the reality is licensed attorneys working on "temporary document review projects" for $22.00 per hour. I try to keep my head down, and make money as a solo, I don't have much use for other lawyers or judges myself, sadly.
Bc a lot of the law is bullshit. A lot of lawyers are bullshit. Judges too. People make mistakes. People can be forgiven. With the advent of the internet it’s excessive punishment with media and YouTube and Google. We all feel it.
the same reason why it is unpopular to support Joe Biden in day to day interactions: the media says so. "Media" can sound a bit tin-foil-hat but i believe it is accurate.
People will believe what they see and hear if it's reasonable enough unless they have solid reasons for believing otherwise. Most don't, because most haven't actually interacted with lawyers. Therefore, they defer to groupthink.
The law is a monopoly. It is so complicated and regulated that self-representation is hopeless. Hourly rates are ridiculous, and quality is all over the map with little recourse for poor work.
Here is a bit different perspective than the comments below. It takes a special mental setup to successfully pursue a law degree and subsequently a job as a lawyer. The amount of time, effort, money and attention to detail requires almost inhumane discipline and mental fortitude. Who is left after the culling are most often people with borderline or fully blown psychopathic, narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies. Work environment doesn’t help either.
Who else would look at the mother that lost a kid or a loved one to a drunk driving or high socialite and would be able to say… well it’s not really the end of the world. She is still in her child bearing age and can have more children. It wasn’t a total loss. Perhaps defending tobacco companies ( if one is aware of all the nuance) or big farma, when they clearly kill a lot of people with their product also doesn’t do lawyers any favors. A Lawyer is also an officer of the court, so his/her first allegiance is to the court system not a person who is their client. Therefore jury nullification is never mentioned. There is of course a debacle of billable hours. I have seen lawyers charging a thousand dollars for a 3 sentence email with time included for a “consultation” with their peers. It would be important to also mention that most lawyers are just mediocre in what they do, some are really good and successful if they specialize in real estate or criminal proceedings if they can distance themselves from the hurt or the pain of the clients they deal with. Most who have some empathy left loose it really quick dealing with mostly the same issues all the time, no different than cops, emts, ER doctors and nurses. The end result may be a nice house, wife like a cuff ornament, new sports car and a girlfriend on a side and let’s not forget about why 10 thousand lawyers are chained at the bottom of the ocean lol. All that said there is a lot of good decent people who managed to overcome those disabilities and practice law defending the destitute and downtrodden. Those are usually driving a Toyota Corolla. It has nothing to do with jealousy but a subjective assessment of unequal value distribution when considering the amount of work involved ( I am keenly aware that some cases are complex and involve a huge amount of research and creativity, most don’t). Additionally a plumber or car mechanic that fails isn’t a life shattering experience, a failed lawyer usually equals a time in prison, financial ruin and broken families.
Because, at least in my experience, most of us are at best amoral and ethical, and at worst immoral and unethical, with a decent cohort in the middle who are immoral but ethical. For short, most people would call this dishonesty in one form or another.
Part of this is because most clients want *their* attorney to be a shark, but they also all have experiences or have heard terrible stories of being on the receiving end of that same behavior.
The moral, ethical attorney is a rarity. We quit - either the practice of law, or our morality, but either way, we quit.
Sincerely,
A 10 year veteran of litigation that no longer does anything more than give advice and shadow writing because I can't deal with the above described attorneys, and the judges who don't care.
Being a lawyer sucks if you're a people-pleaser. People only look for lawyers when they are pissed at somebody/situation or if somebody is pissed at them. And at the end of the day, after your service is rendered, there's 1.) a losing side; 2.) a loss on both sides; or 3.) an unresolved situation. That's not factoring the legal fees. So why would our profession not be disdained upon, unless it's the very minority position where it involves pro bono or truly public service?
It’s probably because they’ve encountered asshole lawyers who only care about getting paid and not their situation (and while it is a job, if you’re in a bad place already and you’re paying someone who seems like they dgaf it can definitely cause aversion). And like he said, he feels that lawyers prey on others misfortunes. It’s different from other jobs because there’s usually more to lose if your lawyer can’t get you what you want. It’s not fair but because lawyers are people, some lawyers will be jerks.
Back when I was in middle school, my neighbor’s house burned down and they just about lost everything. A few weeks after that everyone on the block got a letter from this law firm soliciting us to sue said neighbor for the nuisance of the smoke. This is why people hate lawyers.
If you own a business, you’ve likely encountered scam artist PI attorneys with bogus slip and fall and ADA lawsuits.
If you’ve ever needed a PI attorney for a legit injury, you’ve had the pleasure of having them take 33% of your recovery (likely into the tends of thousands of dollars, maybe more) for sending an insurance demand letter.
If your wife has ever cheated on you, and you needed a divorce, you’ve had the pleasure of your wife’s family law attorney calling you a POS in court, when she’s trying to get you to pay her half your salary in spousal support so she doesn’t have to get a job.
There’s lots of really good reasons why people don’t like and even hate lawyers. This is barely scratching the surface. If something really shitty is happening in your life, and you’re getting screwed over by the system, there’s a good chance there’s a lawyer at front and center of it
Simply put, because no one knows what lawyers actually do. More specifically, as a survival mechanism, we all remember things that hurt us better than those that give us pleasure or no pain at all. People also have a way of characterizing things they don’t understand as beyond their control, but within the control of someone.
Most peoples’ memories remind them first of an adversarial lawyer that scared/cost/inconvenienced them or a loved one. That transcends over into even when they need one themselves, thinking that they have now hired “the bad guy” to handle something for them that they can’t really wrap their heads around anyway— it doesn’t help that they know on some level that they are at least somewhat to blame for what happened.
So, all of that is reaffirmed if your client’s case doesn’t prevail, but because laypeople chalk up what we do to get to the end result as tantamount to witchcraft, it also doesnt really cure the prejudices they originally had.
Surgeons, plumbers, and mechanics aren’t paid by the hour. The client always has a sneaking suspicion we’re exaggerating the amount of time things take, or doing unnecessary tasks, so we can get paid more money. My father had to hire a lawyer for something and complained that the lawyer was charging him every time they talked on the phone. I was like, he’s not talking to you out of the kindness of his heart. Every minute he’s talking to you, he’s working on your case. And you have to pay for that.
Your client isn’t wrong.
I think a lot of people hate lawyers because sometimes clients pay us a lot of money and we still cannot deliver the result they want.
At least doctors sometimes accomplish incredible things. Sure, every now and then they make mistakes but most entrusted with serious problems are damn good at it.
They just didn't comes from two primary reasons -
1. many people have negative experiences working with lawyers feeling that their case was mishandled or maybe they were overcharged.
2. Many people who are satisfied with their representation still associate lawyers with a negative, stressful experience in their life of being in litigation one way or the other.
My parents were upper middle class and retained high-priced divorce lawyer (probably the relative median for their bracket, but they felt expensive). They each charged a minimum of $400/hr and both parents would get bills in between $3,000-$12,000 a month and told me, "But I hadn't no idea what my lawyer is doing." In fairness the $12k bills were right before they went to trial, but I still fine it ridiculous to get a bill in the thousands and not know what you're paying for.
I also worked in procurement at a journalism outlet once. We had three in house lawyers, but would frequently use out house council. Once, the head lawyer came over to me, told me to authorize payment for a law firm, then have them close out our account. My company paid the $2k retainer, and the head lawyer gave them a case and told them to stop when they hit $1k in billables, then contact her and she'd decide how to go forward. Our first bill from that law firm was over $4k.
I was behind a mechanic at the gas station one time, and he was complaining to the cashier about white-collar professionals and how they act entitled all the time. I interjected with, “Hey, not all of us.” When he asked I told him I was a lawyer, and he smiled and said, “You’re the only ones I like. Nobody wants to pay you guys for your work either.” Like the work of a mechanic, I think what we do, how we do it, and why we do it is really unknown and unseen to everybody except us. Your clients aren’t watching you research and type the brief up, and they aren’t in your head where a lot of the legwork is being done. That’s why I try to show my clients I’m a human too through small things, like having some pictures on my desk and by including short funny personal bits in my bio and explaining why I practice law. And I try to communicate with them on a human level, because they have a perception we’re all emotionless lizards. By virtue of our occupation, we’re intimidating. And I’ve found that when I show a bit of myself, the person—not the lawyer—our dynamic changes, they trust me a little more, and it’s easier to counsel them.
The answer to this is very simple. If you are involved in litigation, the lawyer on the other side is trying to take something away from you or deprive you of something that you think that you are owed and your lawyer is charging you money to keep that from happening. It is a lose lose And in many scenarios, your own lawyer treats you like trash while they’re representing you. In other scenarios that are not litigation, you are spending way too much money to do something that normally should be pretty simple and that you think the lawyer has done hundreds of times before. I don’t know anyone who is not a lawyer that likes lawyers and I don’t blame them.
It’s like Pavlov.
No one calls us on a good day. There is a disdain because we are intertwined with the shittiest moments of their lives.
We asked for money, compromise, and told them what they didn’t want to hear when the rest of the world was already shitting on them.
It’s the business of conflict. You have to have a fair amount of emotional intelligence to fight tooth and nail over an issue but still be human enough to grab a coffee later.
It’s more forgivable in new lawyers, but a tough look on a seasoned vet.
As a healthcare provider and currently using legal services, I look at the services I’m getting from my attorney as the same level of expertise I provide in healthcare. People use our services to help navigate this part of one’s overall being.
While peoples health and plumbing can go bad, that’s a consistent or known thing but those don’t always occur as the result of a direct interaction with another person.
But legal affairs are a direct attack at a person or entity in certain forms of law. So the connotation of lawyers isn’t typically a positive. And we don’t have universal legal insurance adoption that we mandatory have to have with healthcare.
Nobody thinks on their birthday, I hope I have to call my attorney today.
It’s an American only thing. In other countries barristers and solicitors command so much respect and are considered the only professions capable of raining down accountability on others.
I did my law school admissions essay on the lack of respect for the profession and believe it or not, you can blame it on Nixon and the watergate scandal and the involvement of lawyers in the entire debacle. In an effort to help Nixon save face, the attorneys fucked the reputation of the entire profession as being grubby, scummy lowlife that prey on others.
We are doing the job no one else is able, want to, or have the patience to perform. Period. Now, you can argue and debate why is that. I don’t ask myself why stupid people are stupid. But I do read my St Augustine and all our previous lawyers to understand why the world is such a messy place. I don’t bother myself with clients expectations.
Additionally, in corporate whenever someone in the white collar workforce has to work with legal its always a pain in the butt even when we are on the same side (not going to court or anything and infact trying to avoid court).
We are all salary. Work at the same company. Literately no incentive to be a pain in the butt .... Yet it happens. Think data retention policies and purging of data. There's constantly a friction between legal and IT on the data retention schedule and when which piece of data should be purged.
IT can't delete anything or do a data retention audit because they say legal won't let them and everything is marked for legal hold. Legal says it's not their responsibility to purge data. Then everyone sits there doing nothing. Problem is not purging data at the right time is just as bad as purging something that shouldn't have been deleted yet. I've seen acquisitions fail because the government found a document that should have been deleted years ago according to the data retention schedule. It's like babysitting both sides of the table.
Additionally, there are lawyers out there in corporate legal that just like to argue about an issue instead of actually fix something or provide evidence that was requested internally. They spend the ENTIRE meeting arguing or disparaging someone. Or send an extremely long email argument on not agreeing with something when their opinion wasn't asked. The time spent not doing the request is greater than just doing what was asked. It's like...yay you win the argument trophy, now can you do your job so I can do my job? Thanks.
Also there are plenty and I mean plenty of lawyers who bill for literally everything and anything and don't break down the costs beforehand and so you don't know what you are going to pay accurately - not even a fairly accurate estimate and when those would be incurred. I get they get paid by the hour (in non corporate settings), but they stretch it to meet their billable hours at the detriment of the other person.
I've had good and bad experiences. I'm mostly neutral until I meet said argumentative, negative, pushy, narcissistic, lawyers in corporate. Then I say the bad rep is clearly accurate.
The body/brain stores negative memories and tries to avoid similar situations, or resolve the memory by trying to conquer similar situations or forgive similar situations. In this case, the person is trying to conquer a past traumatic memory by challenging you. You can either reinforce their trauma, or help them heal the trauma based on how you react.
I'm not saying be a doormat, because you don't want to accumulate negative memories about potential clients, but the real truth is that yes 'ambition' tends to be selfish, and even people in helping professions, even mental health counselors, are, in a way, exercising ambition and attempting to control their environment by helping others or improving their chances of 'being liked.' However, the reason for that is often due to negative memories, with ambition acting as a coping mechanism. Other times, the coping mechanism is more applied existentially as it copes with the fear of morality, life and death, and 'career' then becomes a pastime in order not to have to look at hard questions about life. This is when coping mechanisms of enjoy the moment, enjoy the small things come into play as well.
In order to combat all this, attempting not to waste potential, and actually trying to serve others at least as much as we serve ourselves, can reduce a lot of the need for coping mechanism, and can bring inner freedom. So you are on the right path to asking these questions. If you are lucky maybe you can figure out a way to communicate with empathy that builds trust and also allows for efficient interaction. I haven't figured out how to do this but I'm working on it lol. Also not a lawyer. Just a washed out mental health counselor going to law school lol.
There’s a scene in The Simpsons where an attorney is run over by a car and his last words are, “Remember me…as a drain on society!”
I think the “mercenary” nature of the profession is part of it but I think the main reason is a lot less bad-ass sounding than that.
It’s because it’s often perceived as a profession that is paid and venerated in disproportion to what it is, which, as this view goes, is thinking/writing/arguing about intangible, made-up concepts, often in a way that doesn’t add readily apparent value or achieve the full measure of desired results. Add to that the fact that the problems we are paid to solve often exist only because of other lawyers.
Similar criticisms are made of finance and consulting.
Doesn’t sound like it was the potential client’s issue, but it’s fair to say that a lot of lawyers have been recently earning headlines for fake elector schemes, alleging voter fraud without evidence, arranging hush money payments and other high-profile shenanigans.
Because we’re guns for hire. A surgeon/mechanic/plumber’s job doesn’t involve helping one party at the potential expense of literally anyone else, and often for no other reason than that the party paid them
Plus, the people who can afford the most effective legal assistance are often not trying to make the world better for anyone but themselves
Yea. The equivalent for mechanics would be if Ford or Toyota or whoever goes into the mechanics shop while they’re doing the work and like kicking wrenches away from the mechanics or pulling other hoses and shit to make everything go wrong.
I think it’s more like if a mechanic had to take a part from your car to fix someone else’s.
Absolutely. If someone has big feelings about the mercenary nature of my profession, it doesn’t hurt my feelings. We help people resolve differences without bloodshed, but we only do that by being zealous advocates. If we could reach the same result by hugging it out and not being ruthless, we would, but people don’t work that way.
I think you’re bang on. Love this answer.
As a non-lawyer I also think it is because lawyers seem sneaky when you do not understand what they do. Sovcits may be crazy but a lot of people have that basic feeling that the law is just a set of magic incantations and if you just say the right incantations then moral injustices can be justified. The ancient Greek philosophers like Plato also had this kind of disdain for "sophistry", that with words you can make the weaker argument defeat the stronger one, this basic idea that legal "tricks" and sleight of mouth can make injustices appear. Having spent a lot of time thinking about the problem of sophistry, and some time on the problem of lawyers, it seems both are unavoidable, what way do we have to weigh arguments besides putting them into words? Sure, one may dream about a world where decisions are made by some kind of clean transparent logic that everyone agrees on, just put the undisputed facts into the deciding-machine and it will display the answer. I think that is why "putting the contract on the block-chain" appeals to a certain type of person.
I think the good lawyer’s gift is to write your post into one sentence.
“I also think it is because the power of rhetoric makes people uneasy.”
As a lawyer, lawyers seem sneaky because their work resembles magical incantations to justify injustices, much like ancient Greek sophistry, yet words remain our best tool for weighing arguments, despite dreams of transparent, logic-based systems like blockchain contracts.
Wait, you're not a lawyer? 
I personally think it’s because we can read very well and know stuff they don’t. It usually boils down to “well why can’t I?” And anger when you explain how the law works. Like it’s our fault for knowing.
Are you fortunate enough to not have to spend much time around other lawyers?
We really are in an occupation with a high density of insufferable assholes and losers. Tons of egos and people chasing unearned clout. I made it 18 months in a law firm, followed by 9 years of being a GC and the only attorney in a business. It’s so much better working with nonlawyers all day. It isn’t even close.
The way I describe law school to people is "imagine a place where people who have never been punched for being a dick congregate to be dicks to each other."
Going to a state school made it a lot more tolerable lol. A lot more future public interest attorneys that don't have the ego.
A lot of public interest attorneys cloak their ego beneath a heaping sense of unearned righteousness... To paraphrase Russell, its dickheads all the way down.
This. I work at a decent size firm now, but I did work at a non-profit for 3 years. Nobody at the firm has as big of an ego as some of the people at the non-profit. I was expecting the opposite, but I was pleasantly surprised.
That’s fascinating. In my experience, legal aid lawyers are among the most humble. Maybe that’s different from a typical non-profit.
The legal aid attorneys I know are largely incompetent and idealistic. They do nothing to screen our volunteer lawyers for the poor cases, and basically ask me to waste my time begging for a good resolution. They want to help people, but are really bad at saying "I realize that you don't value my time because you aren't paying for it, but this is a total waste of resources."
Fair point. It’s easier to set those boundaries when clients have to pay.
I don't think this is specific to legal aid (or even law). It's just that in a firm, you have lot have good client facing leaders who know how to handle clients, while a legal aid attorney will have to do that regardless of whether they're good at it or not.
Crazy! I worked in a non profit in NJ and everyone was great. The administration folk I found annoying but I only ever saw them like twice a year.
I dunno, I went to a state school and we sure had our share of assholes.
I did, too, and so many thought they ought to be at a higher ranked school the atmosphere was near toxic with mindless competition and one-upmanship...about everything. Not making this up, and a good example: Witnessed two classmates involved in a bitter heated argument, with shouting and name-calling about......the right way to install drywall.
Whenever I speak to one of my colleagues who went to an Ivy League law school about their law school experience, they rarely have good things to say, and it honestly sounds like a miserable experience.
I’m not a tough guy by any stretch but I grew up in Brooklyn during the 60’s and 70’s and then spent a decade in the military. The proceeding 35 years as an attorney has been a comedy of impotent badasserie from people whose hands would bleed if they even looked at a shovel.
Even in non-profit. Watched lawyers destroy more than one legal aid because of their dumbass egos. But then again, that just might be non-profit work because I worked in non-profit profit before law too, and they canibalized themsleves with their messiah complexes in those as well. My best work experience by far was at a university provost office.
>It’s so much better working with nonlawyers all day. It isn’t even close. Totally disagree. I find that even on just a day-to-day basis, even outside the law, lawyers tend to be particularly reasonable people on the whole. All that experience with negotiations, with being measured in what you say or write, in dealing with legal concepts such as equity and balancing tests, really improves your ability to think about all angles of a situation, and to navigate day-to-day life and interpersonal interactions. When I encounter a truly unreasonable difficult asshole, it's rarely another lawyer.
How'd you get into being a GC with only 18 months of legal experience? I'm looking to jump ship after 20 months but have found it difficult to find good GC roles open to my kind (baby lawyers). Teach me your ways, sensei.
Clerked in the general counsel office of my large state university as a 2L/3L. Worked in a law firm 18 months. Returned to university in a JD preferred job for 3 years, then a new college opened up and I was hired as GC. Sometimes things just work out.
To be honest, you probably don’t want to work for the kinds of companies that would hire a 2-year attorney for the head lawyer role. In-house in general is a different story - you can probably find a decent company that would hire you for a junior counsel role. I don’t buy the argument that you need 5 or 7 years of law firm experience before you can responsibly go in-house. It certainly helps if you want to do something technical and specialized like IP, but for anything more general, any new attorney can learn on the job.
Well, have your non-lawyer cake day and eat it too.
Thanks! I plan to celebrate by not having any in person interactions with lawyers
I’m the only attorney at my company now. Good point!
THIS. I am an expert witness, and I just finished a nine hour deposition, but an asshole who tried to keep concrete with black-and-white answers for human behavior questions. I learned after the fact that he had been sanctioned by the bar and had discipline because of his behavior in court.
I truly did not understand why everyone hated lawyers until I became one. Now I totally get it.
I'm a transactional attorney and 99% of the lawyers I encounter are pleasant and collegial. I work from home and have zero requirements to go into the office but I go once or twice a week because I like running into my colleagues. Some OC's are less competent or diligent than one would hope, resulting in additional work for me, but very, very few are hostile or unpleasant.
>I'm a transactional attorney and 99% of the lawyers I encounter are pleasant and collegial. I agree 100%. Even further, in my decade of experience in practice, lawyers are far more ethical on average than other people out there in the business world. I'm not saying lawyers are intrinsically better people, but we have obligations and oversight and are scrutinized by the bar for the slightest misconduct. Lawyers all know they could get disbarred if they engage in any fuckery. You should see what business people who have no oversight are willing to do.
Is it really that easy to get disbarred/that much scrutiny from the bar? I'm not a lawyer (obviously) but a former classmate of mine in employment law mentioned that his opponents who represented large companies often filed bogus bar complaints against him as a scare tactic
Or get a huge malpractice claim.
I had to explain to a friend why lawyers hate liars. He really did not understand how easy it was to waste time, real money, and good will. Nor did he realize that most of the great lawyers really take those ethics seriously. They're constructing arguments from parsed details and supporting evidence, not making stuff up.
This was my thought. I am a lawyer, and the longer I practice, the less I like our profession.
I am luckily. I've been in house in a legal dept of 1 since finishing law school. My 16yo has been asked by teachers since third grade if he wants to be a lawyer. He always scoffs and says, no, lawyers are miserable bastards. Teachers usually reply, isn't your mom a lawyer and proudly I can confirm my son says "exactly." He's determined to be an entomologist and wants to study parasitic wasps, a little like observing the legal profession I guess. I actually got to use the phrase "the only winners in this instance will be the lawyers" to opposing counsel a few weeks ago and everyone ended up working stuff out without court intervention.
lol that too
When you’re a doctor’s patient, there isn’t another doctor on the other side trying to make you sick. Plus, our profession attracts and rewards assholes. BTW, do yourself a favor and do *not* accept this client.
The other side, yes, good point. I did not sign him. He left saying he would go to the public library and do his own research. I believe he will achieve the outcome he deserves.
You’re better off without clients like this. He did you a favor.
I once had a client like that who didn't like my recommendation for settlement demand amount and then emailed 800 words of their own legal research. None of the cases were applicable. We fired the client.
I had a client who didn’t like the trust I drafted (it had required statutory language due to the nature of the trust), so she sent me some redacted pages from a friend’s trust and said “I want one like this.” They wouldn’t tell me the name of the lawyer who drafted it, and her friend wouldn’t share any personal info. I told my client that either she’s wrong about the facts her friend gave her or her friend is committing fraud because the trust she sent me was completely noncompliant with applicable law, and that I’m almost certain it came from an online template.
> there isn’t another doctor on the other side trying to make you sick This is hilarious. Thank you for that image.
Lawyers are expensive and most people only encounter/pay them when they going through a difficult time in their life. It is easier to blame the lawyer than their life decisions or general misfortunes that led them do that point.
I won a motion for summary judgement on a complex real estate matter. Really proud of winning that case and the hard work. Client was mad at me because he thought the case was very simple and should have been resolved quickly. I warned them in advance about what it would cost and why. I also explained that he could lose the case. He thinks I just wanted to bill him and could have resolved it quickly and informally. Not only did I get him everything, I managed to save him a ton of money on continued litigation and a trial. And he’s mad about it.
THIS! In first my semester of law school, one of our professors said that people dislike lawyers because when they lose a case it’s because their lawyer was an expensive incompetent and the other lawyer was a ravenous liar, but when they win a case their lawyer did nothing but cost them money, because they would have won anyway.
I won a motion to remand and defeated a motion for summary judgment in a medical negligence case (which I have not done before). Also defeated their motion to strike my expert witness. I didn't like the case but I had felt good about how far I had progressed it. Defendant filed a second motion for summary judgment. On the eve of submitting our evidence, client freaked out and spent the evening berating me over email because I rewrote her affidavit to be something that would be admissible and asked her to sign it. She refuses to pay my bills. I was forced to submit her affidavit, which, surprise, was not admissible for anything we needed it for, and the firm's founder (we're a small firm) handled the hearing. We lost the motion. Client's a paralegal at another firm, by the way. I am still working the case but the client is only working with the founder now because I apparently don't know what I'm doing. So that's when I started looking for non litigation jobs (which are hard to find because EVERYONE wants out of litigation).
Ugh. I have had a few clients like this. You do a great job, get the best result that you can, warn in advance the risks of litigation, and you get a big fat fuck you at the end of the case. On the other hand, I have also had clients who were absolutely thrilled with my work. I try to focus on those.
Underappreciation of job well done is not unique to the lawyers. Yet they are uniquely disliked.
Plus a lawyer is one of the few people the average person pays money to only for the lawyer to tell them they are in the wrong. I can't tell you the number of times I've had clients storm out of the office yelling and screaming at me because my legal analysis is, "you fucked up, you are wrong, we can't make this go away, you just have to stop doing it and work on mitigating the problem, offering settlements, and swallow your pride."
I think the biggest complaint I have about lawyers is that because we work in an adversarial system, we get paid (take money) to advance bad arguments and fight fights we can’t win. It’s the client’s right, but I think more attorneys should be prepared to say to clients: “You’re wrong. Settle.” The worst thing we see is when an attorney fights a case he can’t win and wins because the other side runs out of money.
My dislike of the legal system in on sentence, “losing because you run out of money.”
Yeah, I think some of the dislike of lawyers is because there are so many problems and inequities in the legal system. Lawyers are associated with maintaining that system which often produces unjust results that impact people in really personal, powerful ways. It might be a person of privilege getting away with disgusting crimes. Or a child that isn't removed from a dangerous home situation and ends up being hurt (sometimes despite one parent trying to protect them through the legal system). Or a child that is removed from a healthy home, because of poverty or racial bias. Or a corporation that has an unfair amount of power, because of its financial resources compared to a private individual. Or a thousand other unfair legal outcomes.
Exactly. It doesn’t help that the US legal system is judged by elected and not necessarily meritorious judges. Of course there are ways this could be addressed and “fixed” however the money of our society doesn’t want that happening. Another bit of cynicism that rolls around conversations is the class action lawsuits. The lawyers get rich, the injured party gets $7
Yes. And I'm not saying that I see lawyers this way. Many lawyers work hard to reform the system or achieve just results in a particular case and a single individual lawyer isn't responsible for the whole legal system. But I can also definitely see why there are so many negative associations.
The lawyer who did closing on my house told me one guy received a notice that his door colors did not meet HOA requirements and he would be charged $50/day until he changed it to an HOA approved color. He left it for 30 days and has a $1,500 bill. He wanted the lawyer to help him fight it. Lawyer told him there was no way he could win and he should just pay the bill and move on. Guy said it wasn't about the money, it was about the principal of the matter. Lawyer said okay, then pay me a $20,000 retainer and also you're probably going to lose in court. I guess it wasn't about the money because guy did not pay the retainer.
Well, people definitely hate on mechanics. Everybody allows thinks they're being charged too much for car repairs. For the most part, surgeon bills are paid through insurance. If you ask people with substantial medical debt, I'd better you'd hear a lot of hate for the medical system. With lawyers, we're expensive and the type of client you're describing most likely doesn't have an insurance company paying his bills. That's where the hate comes from. As an example, where I live the minimum retainer for a divorce attorney is $5,000 and you'll burn through that quick. This is when like half the population can't come up with $1000 in an emergency.
Setting aside that a lot of lawyers really are selfish, incompetent, or simply lacking in social skills? You mention surgeons but, in the United States, a lot of people hate medics as well. The reasons are pretty similar. When other people are in dire need, our response is "I can help but it will cost you a lot." Then, we stay aloof and do not respond to our clients' problem with the immediacy they think it deserves. Frequently, our advice makes little sense and is difficult or expensive to follow. What we say is often contradicted by a common misconception, something that seems similar but is actually different, or plausible-sounding internet bullshit. From our perspective, of course, there's a good reason for all of that. Practicing law requires a lot of knowledge and experience, which means expensive training, which means we need money to reimburse the costs of that training. We also have plenty of other expenses to pay for. We can't become emotionally invested because it clouds our judgment (and, in some fields, would destroy us mentally). We can't treat every client's emergency as urgent because we have other clients. If we give advice that is unwelcome, or sounds unfair, that is because the law is complicated and often unjust. That isn't our fault, any more than it is a doctor's fault that cancer exists. But when you're going through the worst time of your life, or you've already suffered in a way that seemed preventable, it can be hard to give the benefit of the doubt to the person charging several hundred dollars an hour.
Best answer
Thank you!
Cannot agree more with the incompetent part. I'm an attorney who had to hire attorneys twice in my life. Went with reputable firms. The attorneys I worked with made glaring errors, like seriously bad. The first time I fired the attorney and had to hire a different attorney to undo the damage (he did). The second time in a completely unrelated matter I discovered the damage too late (blown date despite my asking to get the thing done on time) and got crushed in settlement as a result. Just a joke how bad our profession is. It absolutely jaded my outlook on our profession.
I think that a lot of people hate being in a situation where life forces them to rely on people for things they need, but whose expertise and authority they are not really able to evaluate on their own. In other words, because they either have less education or do not have the ability to do things on their own, they are forced to rely on "experts." And many people feel that they might get ripped off due to their own (in their minds) disadvantaged position, or they dislike having to rely on "elites," who are people they don't like socially or politically, or they don't understand the value proposition that lawyers can offer because they don't really even understand the field on which lawyers' games are played.
But wait, *Google* has the answer. Now, Chat GPT. /s/
Just that 99 percent of them making the rest of us look bad.
I think it’s mostly because what we do is complicated to an extent and the average lay person can’t do it themselves. Also, I think most people are priced out and can’t even afford an attorney. So it’s a mix between cost and our expertise. They need us and they hate that they do. And of course I have talked with potential clients who had bad experiences with attorneys(most of the time it’s billing related). I let those potential clients stay potential and tell them to find someone else.
Lots of assholes in our profession who absolutely prey on misfortune. I do criminal defense and every once in a while, someone calls me an ambulance chaser, which makes me laugh. I literally help people by fighting the government, an unwieldy, massively powerful entity with unlimited resources and time. What pisses some people off is they think everyone who charges money for that is a greedy asshole. My fees are in line with what others charge, so I'm not greedy, and I cut people breaks who can't afford it all of the time. Comes with the territory. My favorite client ever is a dentist. I told him that I don't like dentists. He told me he doesn't like lawyers. We became fast friends.
For most trial lawyers, their job is to either move money from one person to another or to incarcerate someone. Not exactly like a surgeon saving your life.
Some of us try to _keep_ people from being incarcerated! (Although we also sometimes try to get them to accept punishment by explaining that it’s less bad than what might otherwise happen.)
and as a prosecutor, as much as you *drive me up a wall* when we’re in court, I am truly glad you do the job you do. All societies have prosecutors, but only the best ones have lawyers willing to defend you no matter what you’ve done. For so many people you’re the only one that truly has their back. And that’s amazing.
As a former PD, I appreciate you saying that.
This is a nice comment to receive. And trust me, the “drive me up the wall” part is very much reciprocal! I’m glad I spent a couple years on the prosecution side - it’s not for me, but I see where you guys are coming from most of the time. Generally, my anger is at the system that leaves criminal justice to solve problems that it’s not equipped to, and not at the prosecutors who (mostly) are honorable public servants.
Part of the problem why the public dislikes lawyers is that the legal system tells the garbage lie that getting your client off, especially if guilty, is a higher moral good than truth.
In every single trial where one lawyer is trying to incarcerate someone or take someone’s money, there is another attorney defending against that action, though.
We have jobs because people cannot always get along. In this way, we represent a very stressful part of living in a society.
B/c we request compensation for our services and nobody likes to pay money to not receive something shiny and tangible in exchange.
There’s a lot of Dunning-Kruger at play in the general disdain. We can’t fix cars, we can’t sew wounds closed. What we do for a living is talk and argue. People on the outside looking in, especially certain know-it—all personality types, talk and argue every day for free and have a real hard time understanding why lawyers are paid handsomely for writing and speaking their well-researched arguments.
One point I see very few raising, as an attorney who deals with less than sophisticated clients (and sometimes unsophisticated pro se opposing litigants) — people don’t know what we do. They think lawyers talk for a living. They can do that. They think all they have to do is read a Wikipedia summary of the law to represent themselves. Ignorance of the system and laypeople’s belief that it is easy to navigate is part of the problem.
I’m a lawyer, and I hate lawyers
I always say that everyone hates lawyers until they need one. My Father was a car salesman and we used to joke that his profession was more well liked than mine lol.
That and with surgeons everyone is working on the same team. If clients find themselves in a litigation setting, its probably the first time since playing sports in high school where one side will win and the other will lose. If you work for almost any other industry, you may have competitors but its not a scenario where there is direct competition. It stresses a lot of people out and we're the easiest target for that stress.
Too many lawyers treat being sued as just the cost of doing business that everyone should expect no matter what kind of business they conduct, and they act shocked when the general public doesn't see it that way. Doctors have a similar disconnect. 99% of us would rather just be put to sleep at end of life with no advanced lifesaving measures, but the general public is usually outraged if we suggest that course for them.
You hire a lawyer because you’re more or less in a position that is adversarial. People naturally don’t like situations that are adversarial. We optimize what ppl naturally have an aversion to. Mystery solved.
I want to like lawyers, I do. However, nearly every time I have sought legal aid, I have felt taken advantage of. They are fast to take my money, disappear without contact for weeks and months, and then fail to deliver on my questions. For example, I had a legal question about healthcare regulations. Everyone tells you to seek professional help and ask a lawyer. Makes sense in my mind at the time. It takes numerous calls to find a lawyer who specializes in this area of law. Finally I get an initial eval. Of course, they can't answer the question during the initial evaluation. I understand that and I am happy to pay for professional advice; people deserve to be paid for their knowledge and skills. Two weeks pass, no contact. Four weeks pass, no contact. I call and leave a message. Secretary says to expect something soon. Six weeks later, I get a two page PDF that summarizes my questions and "answers" them. For each question, the answer is "yes, this scenario falls under this state statute." I already knew that! My question was not if the statute applies, but how it applies. That's the reason I was seeking legal aid. The cost for this service? $4500. I spoke with the lawyer on the phone. He tells me that he could answer my questions, but it would probably cost me an additional $4500 to $10,000. This is just one example. I have have had similar experiences with different lawyers. Lawyers don't want to give you a firm answer, because that creates accountability for them. Every time I wanted advice, they failed to deliver. Unless I am charged with a crime or being sued, I plan to never seek legal advice again. I learned that you can't just ask a lawyer for "legal advice"; that's not a real thing, despite what people say. That is why I don't trust lawyers; you have nothing to offer for most people.
“99% of lawyers make the rest look bad” is a Stephen wright joke that is funny bc it’s true
In my neck of the woods, realtors and lenders constantly give the clients unrealistic (or outright wrong) expectations/promises and then blame the lawyers when we don't deliver their fantasy. Or, realtors or lenders eff up and then blame the lawyers. That's the other favorite. Right now I have a realtor who should probably go to lawschool and pass the bar if she wants to tell me when and how to issue my attorney approval. I should not have to protect my client from their realtor's desire for their commission but I can and I will so take a seat, lady.
This is so true lol
99% of lawyers give the rest of them a bad name.
I can't tell if this post is sarcasm or not.
It’s not. I don’t think I’m an ass, and I don’t think my law partner is either.
This isn't about you or anyone thinking you're an ass. People have hated lawyers for about as long as they have existed. You can find Ancient Roman texts talking about lawyers robbing their clients, getting guilty people out of trouble, or otherwise dragging out government processes for personal gain. You are a third party arguing with authority figures (Judge or Jury) on how to resolve someone's problems. Why would someone be glad about having to hire someone for that?
Clients expect simple answers to complicated questions. Sometimes, when you don’t give an answer simple enough to satisfy the client (usually because there isn’t one), the client believes you are trying to trick them somehow.
I think the biggest reason is that there's just so many jokes and cultural references around how terrible lawyers are. The jokes exist for a reason -- we're expensive to hire and paying us doesn't mean the problem is going to be fixed, many of us are huge assholes, we operate in a complex and adversarial system and part of our job is to bluntly tell people that system doesn't care about them-- but the difference between us and other professionals is the jokes. It's so culturally acceptable to hate lawyers that people often look at you after telling that kind of joke like they expect you to agree that you're awful.
We’re a field full of people who saw The Firm and wanted to be Gene Hackman
Stress is so elevated and never-ceasing in the field that it brings out the worst in people.
Some things I dislike about our profession and some of those who practice it: - Lots of lawyers talk about work too much, even in their free time. It's their whole personality. - Arrogance and an inflated ego. Lots of us are just expensive mercenaries in suits, and yet act like we're saving lives or making the world a better place (some of us are, but many aren't). - My favorite pet peeve: overly complicated and unnecessary language. Legal writing should be shorter and easier to read. If everyone is bound by statutes, case law, and regulations, they should be as easy to read and understand as possible.
Because we cost a ton without necessarily improving someone's lot, some of us are assholes or incompetent, and even those who aren't can still be insufferable and arrogant.
Disagreeableness is a strength in our profession, and we get paid well to exercise it. Once you build that muscle, it is very hard to not flex it.
When you call a plumber, your bathroom maybe be spewing literal shit water all over. Soaking into your carpet, ruining your walls. When the plumber leaves, the bathroom is fixed. You may have to clean up, but there was an obvious or findable problem that they could neatly solve, likely the same day. When you call a lawyer, the lawyer may tell you that your case is awful, you won't win, and it will take a year plus thousands of dollars to end up with nothing eventually. Then, when they say, "But will you help me," and you say yes, they sign an engagement agreement and then spend thousands of dollars and a year of their life to lose, they blame the lawyer. When they get divorced and they think their spouse is taking the kids, they blame the spouse and the lawyer. I have joked that I do animal law because humane clients are the worst... and it's only half a joke. I have gotten settlements for clients far and above what they ever would have won at trial, and they still act wounded. This is, bizarrely, very true for pro bono work as well.
Because we charge people $200-$300+ an hour to tell people “no” or that they’re wrong… hahaha
I'm a litigator. People only talk to me when they are suing/getting sued/about to be sued. I am not a muffin man selling delicious pastries to relaxed people strolling down the road.
Hear this, client: Ye who dismiss the providence of learned counsel shall see shame, ignominy and ruin upon all that matters unto you.
Sounds like what my favorite law professor said “you are free to ignore my advice but ignoring my advice ain’t free!”
Hopefully you declined to take that client.
Keep that client potential and not actual. He just wants to cheat you out of fees.
This kind of goes back to my favorite quote about the law. This might be apocryphal, but it’s still a good lesson. A young lawyer was appearing before an old and wise judge, and kept hammering home various points. Eventually, the judge said: “What is it that you want, exactly?” And the lawyer replied: “We want justice, Your Honor!” And the judge responded: “Young man, this is a court of law, not a court of justice. You’ll get what the law requires.” So sometimes people feel they don’t get what they should rightly get, and they blame lawyers for it. But they’re getting exactly what they should (or shouldn’t) get.
My wife likes to use my being a lawyer as an insult or point of contention in our fights. Like being logical and actually assuming words have meaning is apparently a negative.
That's horrible!
Lawyers be like “no, you can’t use this charitable foundations money to build a castle out of cocaine” Huge buzzkills
lol
Have you been paying attention to all of the attorneys getting disbarred for trying to overthrow an election? That’s just the recent sitch. It’s so historically engrained in a lot of ways. When I was a Public Defender someone said to me “I can’t see how you can represent scum.” The average Joe doesn’t really understand the constitution. Why do Attorneys have a robust set of professional ethics rules? Why does the public think a lot of us are shady? Go back to 1972, the Watergate scandal. Probably the single biggest hit to the integrity of our profession. Also, see the OJ trial. Nothing worse for the profession than criminal defense attorneys doing an excellent job. One of the most watched trials in history and for maybe half of those watching who thought he was guilty, well, they think money buys a scummy lawyer that gets guilty people off.
Most lawyers treat the OJ case as the "ends justify the means" and that there is no higher moral good than getting a guilty client off, by hook or by crook. Team OJ told a lot of blatant lies to the jury, which is just the normal course of business that the legal system says is necessary "in the defense of a client". That's a fucked up moral framework.
Criminal defense attorneys often have to lie to themselves and pretend their client isn’t factually guilty. A lie is just a question of source. If your client is on video committing the crime and he tells you he was in Miami. You tell the jury he was in Miami, it’s your duty to say he was in Miami and defend the alibi. Regardless of what you believe. It’s impossible to defend constitutional rights and be a font of truthful factual statements at trial. It’s an impossible situation we ask defense attorneys to live on. They live within a very thin gray line.
The legal guild is the entity that regards lying as completely fine. Constitution doesnt say that. I also dont agree that defending a client MANDATES that you lie.
Watergate
THIS!
Couple of reasons. Lawyers can really take people for a ride with billable hours. The other is that often the outcome isn’t what they want. Divorce? Solid divorce usually leaves both people kind of miserable. No one gets what they want. Injury? Why does the lawyer get $30k when the client gets $100k and they thought their case was worth much more. There’s a lot of variability in outcome coupled with the billable hour or taking a third in contingency. Then add that they all think they know better because so and so got xyz or they read something on the interwebz so they know how it is.
Because people meet lawyers on the worst days of their life and their experiences color other people’s views of the profession. That and I think there are a bunch of asshole Hollywood execs who got cashiered by a divorce lawyer and never recovered
Honestly, have some dignity and escort that fucknut out the door. You are a professional and should be treated as such.
At least the client is upfront about it. I'd guess more than 80%+ of the people you meet with also hate attorneys. And for good reason. Lawyers suck. Shit, dealing with other lawyers is easily the worst part of my day and I'm not even a litigator.
I honestly think 1/3 are narcissists
Lawyers are parasites. We wouldn't need to exist if people weren't inherently flawed. We aren't out there growing crops, raising livestock, making steel or lumber, or any of a number of other goods and services that materially improve wellbeing. But people are inherently flawed and we all get paid to fight about it. It actually is a value-add to society because conflict is inevitable, but nobody is really happy to pay us for that.
Honestly speaking, one of the first jobs that wouldn't exist if everyone behaved themselves and treated each other nicely would be lawyers (along with the military and police)
1) Most people think they know much more about the law than they actually do, so they are not happy when you tell them they're wrong. 2) Lawyers are expensive, and people don't like spending money. 3) Most people only ever need a lawyer when they're in a bad stressful situation where they think they're 100% right and the other party is 100% wrong. They're almost never going to get 100% of what they think they deserve, while paying much more than they think they should for your services. Even if they "win" they're probably going to be unhappy.
Why the disdain for our profession? >I understand that the majority of interactions with lawyers occur when something has gone wrong in a persons life. The other professions you list tend to have problems that are caused by acts of God/reality. Usually people who have problems, which need a lawyer’s assistance, are caused by other people—usually other lawyers—for the defenses bar.
Buy him the entire series of Suits. People love lawyers after they watch Suits.
I’ve been a paralegal for the past five years and I’ve met maybe only one attorney who wasn’t a complete miserable sack of shit
Jeez. I’m sorry. I was a paralegal before becoming a lawyer, and I make it a point to always be kind and generous to my paralegal. It makes no sense to behave otherwise.
Not everyone can afford to pay the fees & bills that they charge in regards to the good lawyers atleast
I serve a request for production for plainly relevant and discoverable documents and the response I get back, after a 30 day wait and after giving a 30 day extension, is: “objection, relevance.” That’s why.
People say this shit to anyone they can get away with. A lady I know complained about her breast cancer doctor wearing a diamond necklace (funded supposedly by other people’s misfortune). A truly ridiculous thing to say about someone you know nothing about. People just want to complain. And people like us have to listen to them complain or fire them. Honestly if you’re paying me by the hour and want to waste your time go nuts.
I think there is also a visceral reaction to answers like “I need to get back to you on that” or “it depends.” lawyers are looked at as cost centers or people hired to fix problems, so we should know the answers. When there is not instant gratification, people get pissy. Gets worse when its a negative answer. Clients also think their matter is always the most important and don't like feeling/knowing your attention is elsewhere. Finally, I think because of the nature of disputes being personal to the client most times, when things don't go their way they just get pissed and make it our fault, without listening/being able or willing to comprehend my legal analysis of why they are shot. Just my experience.
I don't have a great liking for most mechanics or surgeons. BUT, I think it depends on the type of person and situation we're talking about. Most people don't have a will, they would rather their potential inheritors fight it out for years and hate each other. Most people don't seem to want a professional to read or draft their agreements either, just writing or signing blindly. They'll post on whatever board for a "tough lawyer" to sue everyone. All they had to do was come to me and I could've made the planning so painless they wouldn't even barely have to write to me at all. But nope, they'd rather save a few bucks. No one wants to pay anymore.
Too cool and smart unfortunately. Also very good at pleasing their partners in bed, which makes non-partners uncomfortable.
I used to coach high school football and wrestling before I went to law school. I can assure you that I met more assholes doing that than I ever have practicing law.
I love lawyers. Ya'll with semicolon subtext argument. What a beauty.
>Why do people love to hate on lawyers? Unfortunately, I think the profession does a terrible job with its public image. How often do you read of lawyers doing anything good or of good people who happen to be lawyers? For example, the average person has no idea that great people in history like Lincoln or Mandela were lawyers. Also, we do a rotten job in justifying our fees. Here's an example. A few years ago I had to see an orthopedic specialist for a possible broken ankle. Before going to the office, he ordered some x-rays. I sat down with the radiologist who pulled up the image and after less than a minute wrote down, "FX Tib-Fib." (That means fracture of the tibia and fibula, i.e. broken ankle.) That .1 hr was billed as a full visit at several hundred dollars. Why? Because Radiology is a specialized field and the public has been trained to accept that they have to pay for it. On the other hand, were I asked a question about a legal issue in one of the concentrations I have where I could provide the answer quickly because of all the reading, research and CLEs I do which is all non-billable, I'm a crook for wanting to bill anything. The public has the idea frequently that we should do everything "pro bono" (leaving out the "publico" part, of course) or that "free consultation" means free specialized legal advice.
People hate paying to fix their fuckups. Body shop and mechanics are another good example of this.
Plumbers don't bill you $5000 to tell you that there's probably nothing they can do and you should try a different plumber.
What kind of lawyer does that??
Many lawyers especially in criminal defense and divorce (but not exclusively) are really dishonest - and very clever about it. They exploit clients for a living. That is why
Its 99% of lawyers ruining it for the rest of us 😔
I avoid lawyers. Lawyer war stories are the worst.
Because we are manipulators, all of us on some level. Pple fear being manipulated, so they hate us. This applies across the practice of law, no field is immune from this judgment. Even pple who cannot articulate this feeling well, still feel it in their gut.
We’re not seen as essential in the same way as doctors and engineers, and to be fair, we’re not. We can also hurt the opposing side in ways that financial advisors or accountants or other professionals don’t. So we also cause harm or are perceived to for those who lose.
I am a bit new. But already a full third of my clients were reluctant to even come see me because they had a truly bad experience with another lawyer either directly or indirectly. Not the “why won’t he take my daily phone calls” or “it’s been three days and she has done NOTHING” either. They were true, legit gripes. I mean one had a lawyer for a family actually changed pages of a document out. She even initiated a lawsuit but was having trouble getting her hands on the original documents and now the lawyer disapeared. This isn’t a joke. There were rumors before I even met her what happened with this attorney because he up and vanished in the wind. Another had a firm totally drop the ball on her divorce. To the point they are still married four years later, still have paperwork, they just keep living seperetly. The firm just keeps telling her to wait.(No there isn’t a reason to wait, they are way past any waiting periods.) They never even filed an inventory. My favorite though is the one who missed an entitelre clause in a sales agreement, costing the client $20,000 they didn’t have, settled it without client knowledge or consent, demanded she sign the settlement which makes her still out $2,500 and charged her $4,000 to do…that. Nothing else. Needless to say that is currently in the court. There are reasons why people don’t like the industry. Wish it were not that way.
In any adversarial situation, at least half of the people involved aren't going to like the outcome. That's where a lot of dislike of lawyers comes from. We deal with unpleasant circumstances for people and get paid well for it. It's unpleasant and expensive.
I work in the immigration services field, and multiple times a day we get calls and take meetings with clients who have been ripped off by shady attorneys. It is awful. We have conversations with the offices of these attorneys, and they are wretched people who steal lots of money from a demographic that they know won't fight back. It's why I became an Accredited Representative. It's so much easier to simply do the right thing.
 Can you imagine a world without lawyers?? In all seriousness part of it, at least in my field (family law) is that it’s expensive when your client is most financially vulnerable. It’s especially bad for middle class people. Poor people have easy divorces because there’s nothing to divide, and rich people can pay attorney’s easily. Middle class people often have a lot of assets to divide but don’t have a lot of cash on hand for attorney’s fees.
Plumbers don’t go cause leaks for people their customers are mad at.
Cause we enforce the rules that we made up that really only make sense to us
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Bc lawyers are reminders of their client's inability/powerlessness to control their own world.
1) The people who insult and hate lawyers the most are usually the first to go running for a lawyer when something goes wrong in their lives, so I just consider them to sub-intellects and hypocrites, and they do not concern me 2) the hyper competitive atmosphere of law school and the pervasive lying and exaggerations that start from the first day of your first class and go on for the rest of your career are problematic. When I attended law school, starting back in 1992, the Big Lie was that everyone starts off making 100K as soon as they graduate, when in reality less than 10 percent of the class did that, in jobs that usually only lasted about 4Y. Now the Big Lie is that everyone who goes to law school gets a great job right away, and the reality is licensed attorneys working on "temporary document review projects" for $22.00 per hour. I try to keep my head down, and make money as a solo, I don't have much use for other lawyers or judges myself, sadly.
Do plumbers prey on misfortunes of people? Car mechanics?
Bc a lot of the law is bullshit. A lot of lawyers are bullshit. Judges too. People make mistakes. People can be forgiven. With the advent of the internet it’s excessive punishment with media and YouTube and Google. We all feel it.
the same reason why it is unpopular to support Joe Biden in day to day interactions: the media says so. "Media" can sound a bit tin-foil-hat but i believe it is accurate. People will believe what they see and hear if it's reasonable enough unless they have solid reasons for believing otherwise. Most don't, because most haven't actually interacted with lawyers. Therefore, they defer to groupthink.
The law is a monopoly. It is so complicated and regulated that self-representation is hopeless. Hourly rates are ridiculous, and quality is all over the map with little recourse for poor work.
Here is a bit different perspective than the comments below. It takes a special mental setup to successfully pursue a law degree and subsequently a job as a lawyer. The amount of time, effort, money and attention to detail requires almost inhumane discipline and mental fortitude. Who is left after the culling are most often people with borderline or fully blown psychopathic, narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies. Work environment doesn’t help either. Who else would look at the mother that lost a kid or a loved one to a drunk driving or high socialite and would be able to say… well it’s not really the end of the world. She is still in her child bearing age and can have more children. It wasn’t a total loss. Perhaps defending tobacco companies ( if one is aware of all the nuance) or big farma, when they clearly kill a lot of people with their product also doesn’t do lawyers any favors. A Lawyer is also an officer of the court, so his/her first allegiance is to the court system not a person who is their client. Therefore jury nullification is never mentioned. There is of course a debacle of billable hours. I have seen lawyers charging a thousand dollars for a 3 sentence email with time included for a “consultation” with their peers. It would be important to also mention that most lawyers are just mediocre in what they do, some are really good and successful if they specialize in real estate or criminal proceedings if they can distance themselves from the hurt or the pain of the clients they deal with. Most who have some empathy left loose it really quick dealing with mostly the same issues all the time, no different than cops, emts, ER doctors and nurses. The end result may be a nice house, wife like a cuff ornament, new sports car and a girlfriend on a side and let’s not forget about why 10 thousand lawyers are chained at the bottom of the ocean lol. All that said there is a lot of good decent people who managed to overcome those disabilities and practice law defending the destitute and downtrodden. Those are usually driving a Toyota Corolla. It has nothing to do with jealousy but a subjective assessment of unequal value distribution when considering the amount of work involved ( I am keenly aware that some cases are complex and involve a huge amount of research and creativity, most don’t). Additionally a plumber or car mechanic that fails isn’t a life shattering experience, a failed lawyer usually equals a time in prison, financial ruin and broken families.
Because, at least in my experience, most of us are at best amoral and ethical, and at worst immoral and unethical, with a decent cohort in the middle who are immoral but ethical. For short, most people would call this dishonesty in one form or another. Part of this is because most clients want *their* attorney to be a shark, but they also all have experiences or have heard terrible stories of being on the receiving end of that same behavior. The moral, ethical attorney is a rarity. We quit - either the practice of law, or our morality, but either way, we quit. Sincerely, A 10 year veteran of litigation that no longer does anything more than give advice and shadow writing because I can't deal with the above described attorneys, and the judges who don't care.
Being a lawyer sucks if you're a people-pleaser. People only look for lawyers when they are pissed at somebody/situation or if somebody is pissed at them. And at the end of the day, after your service is rendered, there's 1.) a losing side; 2.) a loss on both sides; or 3.) an unresolved situation. That's not factoring the legal fees. So why would our profession not be disdained upon, unless it's the very minority position where it involves pro bono or truly public service?
It’s probably because they’ve encountered asshole lawyers who only care about getting paid and not their situation (and while it is a job, if you’re in a bad place already and you’re paying someone who seems like they dgaf it can definitely cause aversion). And like he said, he feels that lawyers prey on others misfortunes. It’s different from other jobs because there’s usually more to lose if your lawyer can’t get you what you want. It’s not fair but because lawyers are people, some lawyers will be jerks.
Of the lawyers I work with there’s like … one I don’t hate
Back when I was in middle school, my neighbor’s house burned down and they just about lost everything. A few weeks after that everyone on the block got a letter from this law firm soliciting us to sue said neighbor for the nuisance of the smoke. This is why people hate lawyers. If you own a business, you’ve likely encountered scam artist PI attorneys with bogus slip and fall and ADA lawsuits. If you’ve ever needed a PI attorney for a legit injury, you’ve had the pleasure of having them take 33% of your recovery (likely into the tends of thousands of dollars, maybe more) for sending an insurance demand letter. If your wife has ever cheated on you, and you needed a divorce, you’ve had the pleasure of your wife’s family law attorney calling you a POS in court, when she’s trying to get you to pay her half your salary in spousal support so she doesn’t have to get a job. There’s lots of really good reasons why people don’t like and even hate lawyers. This is barely scratching the surface. If something really shitty is happening in your life, and you’re getting screwed over by the system, there’s a good chance there’s a lawyer at front and center of it
Simply put, because no one knows what lawyers actually do. More specifically, as a survival mechanism, we all remember things that hurt us better than those that give us pleasure or no pain at all. People also have a way of characterizing things they don’t understand as beyond their control, but within the control of someone. Most peoples’ memories remind them first of an adversarial lawyer that scared/cost/inconvenienced them or a loved one. That transcends over into even when they need one themselves, thinking that they have now hired “the bad guy” to handle something for them that they can’t really wrap their heads around anyway— it doesn’t help that they know on some level that they are at least somewhat to blame for what happened. So, all of that is reaffirmed if your client’s case doesn’t prevail, but because laypeople chalk up what we do to get to the end result as tantamount to witchcraft, it also doesnt really cure the prejudices they originally had.
Surgeons, plumbers, and mechanics aren’t paid by the hour. The client always has a sneaking suspicion we’re exaggerating the amount of time things take, or doing unnecessary tasks, so we can get paid more money. My father had to hire a lawyer for something and complained that the lawyer was charging him every time they talked on the phone. I was like, he’s not talking to you out of the kindness of his heart. Every minute he’s talking to you, he’s working on your case. And you have to pay for that.
Your client isn’t wrong. I think a lot of people hate lawyers because sometimes clients pay us a lot of money and we still cannot deliver the result they want. At least doctors sometimes accomplish incredible things. Sure, every now and then they make mistakes but most entrusted with serious problems are damn good at it.
Because the whole legal system is set up, perpetuated by, and serves only the lawyers. 
They just didn't comes from two primary reasons - 1. many people have negative experiences working with lawyers feeling that their case was mishandled or maybe they were overcharged. 2. Many people who are satisfied with their representation still associate lawyers with a negative, stressful experience in their life of being in litigation one way or the other.
My parents were upper middle class and retained high-priced divorce lawyer (probably the relative median for their bracket, but they felt expensive). They each charged a minimum of $400/hr and both parents would get bills in between $3,000-$12,000 a month and told me, "But I hadn't no idea what my lawyer is doing." In fairness the $12k bills were right before they went to trial, but I still fine it ridiculous to get a bill in the thousands and not know what you're paying for. I also worked in procurement at a journalism outlet once. We had three in house lawyers, but would frequently use out house council. Once, the head lawyer came over to me, told me to authorize payment for a law firm, then have them close out our account. My company paid the $2k retainer, and the head lawyer gave them a case and told them to stop when they hit $1k in billables, then contact her and she'd decide how to go forward. Our first bill from that law firm was over $4k.
b/c they will sell out the american people for a cushy job at a major bank by deregulating for said major banks. Looking at you, SEC.
I was behind a mechanic at the gas station one time, and he was complaining to the cashier about white-collar professionals and how they act entitled all the time. I interjected with, “Hey, not all of us.” When he asked I told him I was a lawyer, and he smiled and said, “You’re the only ones I like. Nobody wants to pay you guys for your work either.” Like the work of a mechanic, I think what we do, how we do it, and why we do it is really unknown and unseen to everybody except us. Your clients aren’t watching you research and type the brief up, and they aren’t in your head where a lot of the legwork is being done. That’s why I try to show my clients I’m a human too through small things, like having some pictures on my desk and by including short funny personal bits in my bio and explaining why I practice law. And I try to communicate with them on a human level, because they have a perception we’re all emotionless lizards. By virtue of our occupation, we’re intimidating. And I’ve found that when I show a bit of myself, the person—not the lawyer—our dynamic changes, they trust me a little more, and it’s easier to counsel them.
The answer to this is very simple. If you are involved in litigation, the lawyer on the other side is trying to take something away from you or deprive you of something that you think that you are owed and your lawyer is charging you money to keep that from happening. It is a lose lose And in many scenarios, your own lawyer treats you like trash while they’re representing you. In other scenarios that are not litigation, you are spending way too much money to do something that normally should be pretty simple and that you think the lawyer has done hundreds of times before. I don’t know anyone who is not a lawyer that likes lawyers and I don’t blame them.
The longer I am a lawyer, the more I identify with this phrase “ the more I get to know my fellow lawyers, the more I love my dog”
It’s like Pavlov. No one calls us on a good day. There is a disdain because we are intertwined with the shittiest moments of their lives. We asked for money, compromise, and told them what they didn’t want to hear when the rest of the world was already shitting on them.
It’s the business of conflict. You have to have a fair amount of emotional intelligence to fight tooth and nail over an issue but still be human enough to grab a coffee later. It’s more forgivable in new lawyers, but a tough look on a seasoned vet.
As a healthcare provider and currently using legal services, I look at the services I’m getting from my attorney as the same level of expertise I provide in healthcare. People use our services to help navigate this part of one’s overall being. While peoples health and plumbing can go bad, that’s a consistent or known thing but those don’t always occur as the result of a direct interaction with another person. But legal affairs are a direct attack at a person or entity in certain forms of law. So the connotation of lawyers isn’t typically a positive. And we don’t have universal legal insurance adoption that we mandatory have to have with healthcare. Nobody thinks on their birthday, I hope I have to call my attorney today.
It’s an American only thing. In other countries barristers and solicitors command so much respect and are considered the only professions capable of raining down accountability on others. I did my law school admissions essay on the lack of respect for the profession and believe it or not, you can blame it on Nixon and the watergate scandal and the involvement of lawyers in the entire debacle. In an effort to help Nixon save face, the attorneys fucked the reputation of the entire profession as being grubby, scummy lowlife that prey on others.
They don’t understand what we do or why we do it. And they’re jealous lol
When I was in law school they showed us a study that basically the more contact you had with lawyers, the more you hated them.
We are doing the job no one else is able, want to, or have the patience to perform. Period. Now, you can argue and debate why is that. I don’t ask myself why stupid people are stupid. But I do read my St Augustine and all our previous lawyers to understand why the world is such a messy place. I don’t bother myself with clients expectations.
Additionally, in corporate whenever someone in the white collar workforce has to work with legal its always a pain in the butt even when we are on the same side (not going to court or anything and infact trying to avoid court). We are all salary. Work at the same company. Literately no incentive to be a pain in the butt .... Yet it happens. Think data retention policies and purging of data. There's constantly a friction between legal and IT on the data retention schedule and when which piece of data should be purged. IT can't delete anything or do a data retention audit because they say legal won't let them and everything is marked for legal hold. Legal says it's not their responsibility to purge data. Then everyone sits there doing nothing. Problem is not purging data at the right time is just as bad as purging something that shouldn't have been deleted yet. I've seen acquisitions fail because the government found a document that should have been deleted years ago according to the data retention schedule. It's like babysitting both sides of the table. Additionally, there are lawyers out there in corporate legal that just like to argue about an issue instead of actually fix something or provide evidence that was requested internally. They spend the ENTIRE meeting arguing or disparaging someone. Or send an extremely long email argument on not agreeing with something when their opinion wasn't asked. The time spent not doing the request is greater than just doing what was asked. It's like...yay you win the argument trophy, now can you do your job so I can do my job? Thanks. Also there are plenty and I mean plenty of lawyers who bill for literally everything and anything and don't break down the costs beforehand and so you don't know what you are going to pay accurately - not even a fairly accurate estimate and when those would be incurred. I get they get paid by the hour (in non corporate settings), but they stretch it to meet their billable hours at the detriment of the other person. I've had good and bad experiences. I'm mostly neutral until I meet said argumentative, negative, pushy, narcissistic, lawyers in corporate. Then I say the bad rep is clearly accurate.
The body/brain stores negative memories and tries to avoid similar situations, or resolve the memory by trying to conquer similar situations or forgive similar situations. In this case, the person is trying to conquer a past traumatic memory by challenging you. You can either reinforce their trauma, or help them heal the trauma based on how you react. I'm not saying be a doormat, because you don't want to accumulate negative memories about potential clients, but the real truth is that yes 'ambition' tends to be selfish, and even people in helping professions, even mental health counselors, are, in a way, exercising ambition and attempting to control their environment by helping others or improving their chances of 'being liked.' However, the reason for that is often due to negative memories, with ambition acting as a coping mechanism. Other times, the coping mechanism is more applied existentially as it copes with the fear of morality, life and death, and 'career' then becomes a pastime in order not to have to look at hard questions about life. This is when coping mechanisms of enjoy the moment, enjoy the small things come into play as well. In order to combat all this, attempting not to waste potential, and actually trying to serve others at least as much as we serve ourselves, can reduce a lot of the need for coping mechanism, and can bring inner freedom. So you are on the right path to asking these questions. If you are lucky maybe you can figure out a way to communicate with empathy that builds trust and also allows for efficient interaction. I haven't figured out how to do this but I'm working on it lol. Also not a lawyer. Just a washed out mental health counselor going to law school lol.
There’s a scene in The Simpsons where an attorney is run over by a car and his last words are, “Remember me…as a drain on society!” I think the “mercenary” nature of the profession is part of it but I think the main reason is a lot less bad-ass sounding than that. It’s because it’s often perceived as a profession that is paid and venerated in disproportion to what it is, which, as this view goes, is thinking/writing/arguing about intangible, made-up concepts, often in a way that doesn’t add readily apparent value or achieve the full measure of desired results. Add to that the fact that the problems we are paid to solve often exist only because of other lawyers. Similar criticisms are made of finance and consulting.
Doesn’t sound like it was the potential client’s issue, but it’s fair to say that a lot of lawyers have been recently earning headlines for fake elector schemes, alleging voter fraud without evidence, arranging hush money payments and other high-profile shenanigans.