How much exaggeration is contained in US legal filings/responses?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m following some big US defamation suits right now (won’t be hard to guess which ones), and the actual filings are posted on line. I noticed today in one defendant’s response that their lawyers basically accuse the plaintiff’s lawyers of not having a clue how the law works and that they’ve done everything wrong and the suit needs to be dismissed outright.

Surely legal professionals charging their clients hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour don’t constantly make basic foolish mistakes like suing for damages not allowed, forgetting to provide key information, or not knowing the time limits for being able to take legal action (I’m of course talking about genuine cases where actual results are expected; not media-stunt cases).

I would have thought making outlandish claims in court would undermine one side’s credibility… but is a certain amount of BSing accepted as normal?

2

Several lawyers have told me there’s an old maxim: “If the facts are against you, pound the law. If the law is against you, pound the facts. If both the facts and the law are against you, pound the table.”

3

If your client insist on a lawsuit, it’s up to the lawyer to follow their wishes or drop the case. Which option would you say makes the lawyer the most money?

There are rules lawyers must abide by, but if those lines are not crossed, you have to do what the client asks.

I was on a jury when the defense attorneys knew the had no defense, but the clients insisted to go to trial. So the lawyers came up with a narrative that an acquaintance was a criminal mastermind who framed them. They knew it was so unlikely that they put me on the jury because I read science fiction