Why Do People Hate Lawyers?

[Bearflag70]

I like this “no vehicles in the park” hypo demonstrating that it’s not all as simple and black-and-white as many would like it to be.

A guy comes to a lawyer’s office because he was injured by a drunk driver in the parking lot of Cityoplois Park.

The lawyer does some research and the client decides to sue Cityopolis after Cityopolis refuses to settle.

A newspaper article explains that he is suing Cityopolis for his injuries caused by a drunk driver in Cityopolis Park.

The taxpayers of Cityopolis are appalled that Cityoplois was sued as a “deep pocket” because they see no reason why Cityopolis could possibly be at fault when the real culprit is the drunk driver. What could the city have done?

This is what the lawyer’s research revealed:

Cityoplois Municipal Code section 111 that says, “No vehicles shall be permitted in Cityopolis parks.”

The taxpayers read about this statute in the paper and read a quote from the lawyer saying that, as a matter of law, the city should have barricaded the lot from cars.

The taxpayers think, “Well, that’s preposterous to think that the city should have barricaded the PARKING LOT from cars. The PARKING LOT isn’t a park! GODDAMN LAWYERS!”

Yeah, but the newspaper didn’t mention two previous court cases found in the lawyer’s legal research:

1. Jones v. Roberts: An auto accident case wherein the court held that a “car” is a “vehicle”.

2. Smith v. Stevens: A negligence case wherein Stevens was held liable to Smith for burns caused by a fire-related accident while barbecuing at a tailgate party in the parking lot in front of the local stadium, which sits in a city park. Liability was found in part under a “negligence per se” theory for violating a safety statute, Citiopolis Municipal Code section 222, prohibiting fires in parks. The city was not sued in that case.

Reading the statutes and the case law, we see that a “car” is a “vehicle”, and “parking lots” can be considered “parks”.

Does this mean that Cityoplois had a legal duty to barricade the parking lot from cars? Was the city’s failure to barricade the lot a substantial factor contributing to the injuries related to the drunk driver?

The lawyers and the court will have to sort this out. The answer to this legal problem, and so many others, isn’t as easy as many members of public think or think it should be. The court is going to want to hear good arguments both ways.

In the meantime, all the taxpayers think is “This lawsuit is CRAZY! A PARKING LOT isn’t a PARK! The answer is SIMPLE! GODDAMN LAWYERS!”

[Realhoops]

*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves *
**Realhoops, congratulations on acknowledging an argument on only the second try. You bring to mind another reason why lawyers get less respect than they otherwise might, particularly on the GD board - their “debating” tactics. An example is your hammering on the theoretical possibility of representing oneself in court as a counter to the claim that, in the real world, it is not often enough a possibility to be practical.

Well, isn’t that a nice civil reply to an attempt on my part to treat you with civility? For the record, perhaps you are not familiar with the “real world” of the legal system? I am in a position where, on a daily basis, I see countless lawsuits filed by countless people who are, in fact, representing themselves. You bring to mind another reason why lawyers get entirely frustrated trying to debate with people, particularly on the GD board, who refuse to even open their minds to the possibility of any view other than their own. I certainly never “hammered” on any “theoretical” possibility that people can represent themselves. There’s nothing theoretical about it. It’s an absolute fact. I also never acknowledge that it is not often enough a possibility to be practical. I invited you to actually debate those practicalities if you wanted, rather than saying it is “not practical” with no particular reasoning whatsoever and then resorting to again saying that people are “forced” to hire lawyers. You still haven’t done so, and if you were unable to understand that clear language in my earlier post, I’ll make it simpler for you now: I’d invite you to debate why people are ever “forced” to hire lawyers.

I’m glad you finally agree that lawyers themselves at least contribute to excessive litigiousness and its associated costs, to the innocent and winners as well as to the guilty and the losers. But I’m ready to assert that they contribute to excessive disputativeness as well - and you’re an example. **

I’m glad to see you are still unwilling to acknowledge that the problem is not entirely with the lawyers. It adds so much credibility to the rest of your assertions. I’m also glad to see you are ready to assert that I’m an example of people contributing to the excessive disputativeness of lawyers. Perhaps you’re also ready to saddle me with the entire blame for people hating lawyers without knowing me at all?

[Roadfood]

*Originally posted by Captain Amazing *
**The firm I work for has this one client who always complains about how much we charge and how much cheaper it is to do the stuff himself, because it’s all so easy anyway, so every time there’s something to do, like forms to submit with the government, he does it himself. Then, a few weeks later, he calls us, because the government has rejected his application or sent back his form because he’s made some mistake we would have caught, and so we have to fix the problem for him, which takes longer and costs more than if we had just done the work for him in the first place. **

RIght, and why are the forms and the processes so complicated that an ordinary person can’t do them right? Because the lawyers made them that way.

[Banger]

I see people representing themselves all the time with my line of work. I work in an agency, performing duties akin to that of an administrative law judge, and I often see people file complaints and responses to complaints on their own without the assistance of attorneys. Of course, as an agency we have more flexibility than the courts in the proceedings, but parties in cases I handle still have to argue factual and legal issues. I have seen many pro se parties prevail over represented parties in these cases.

At the same time, I see the value of attorneys in these proceedings, as we often receive phone calls and letters from people without attorneys seeking legal advice on their cases. We have to repeatedly remind such people that as an agency we cannot provide legal advice and that if they seek such advice they should obtain the services of an attorney.

Even our little area of the law has its complexities. I have seen parties (both attorneys and lay people) put forth arguments with their interpretations of state law, city regulations, and past decisions. It’s not a matter of “twisting words”; it’s a matter of issues resulting from the inherent flaws of laws, regulations and decisions. No one has enough foresight to anticipate every possible issue that can come up due to the nonspecificity of laws and regulations, and interpretations of the laws and regulations to address various situations via decisions can interpreted in their own right.

This doesn’t even take into account factual issues where a finder of fact has to make determinations about conflicting factual assertions. Sometimes it’s not a matter of law, it’s a matter of figuring out who is truthful and/or accurate in their account of the facts.

Over the past few years I have learned a lot about a very small area of the law; I know as much about it as just about anyone. Still, I learn new things every day while working with it. Even the smallest bit of law can be incredibly complex.

The reason why the law is so complex is because life is complex, and the complexities of law, like that of life, cannot just be simplified. This is because the law is supposed to address situations occurring in life, and those life situations can occur in innumerably different ways. Laws and regulations attempt to address many of these different circumstances, and the courts interpret the laws to fill in the gaps.

If our laws were simplified, interpretation of those “simple laws” would increase. If our laws weren’t so complex, we would have more litigation, as parties would have more opportunities to argue their interpretations of the resulting vagueness of the law.

For those who imply that lawyers are unethical, please note that in order to become a lawyer one must pass a multistate professional responsibility exam to show one’s familiarity with the ethical responsibilities of a lawyer. Not many other professions require one to pass an ethics exam in order to practice. A lawyer can be punished, including disbarment, for failing to act in accordance with the code of professional conduct.

[pravnik]

“The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers!”

Henry VI Part 2 (Act 4) Scene II

Shakespeare was going for the chuckle here (Yeah, kill the lawyers! Screw 'em!) but he was also illustrating a point and perhaps paying the lawyers a backhanded compliment. The line was spoken by a member of an angry mob wanting to set up a tyrannical despotim, the villains in the story. They are followers of Jack Cade, who Shakespeare calls "the head of an army of rabble and a demogouge pandering to the innocent. In the former Soviet Union, economic opportunities abound,but nobody will invest for the simple reason that you can’t get a contract enforced. The Russian mafia runs the place. There is no Rule of Law. The mafia likes it that way.

Lawyers may create some unnecessary problems from time to time, but they also protect rights. They’re not a bunch of calculating schemers who deliberately create a byzantine labyrinth of rules only they understand; believe it or not their goals are clarity and avoidance of litigation. Lawyers are the players and referees in a very unpopular game that is absolutely vital to a free society.

Despotisms don’t like lawyers. They don’t need them, because they only get in the way of their way of doing things. Adolf Hitler once said “I shall not rest until every German sees that it is a shameful thing to be a lawyer”. He didn’t need them around, the Gestapo settled disputes just fine to his liking.

Aside: 95% of all the lawyers you know are overly confrontational a**holes? Good Lord man! I dunno, I know gobs of lawyers, and a great many if not most of them are regular guys, with more than a few I would call my very best friends. There are jerks, but there’s plenty of decent ones who you wouldn’t even know were lawyers if they didn’t tell you.

[pravnik]

Argh. Change the quote above to “the head of an army of rabble and a demogouge pandering to the ignorant.” Sheesh, I even previewed.

[RobertTB]

*Originally posted by Realhoops *
** The reality is that if you get sued, you can represent yourself. If you want to debate the practicalities of doing so, such as whether you are likely to succeed doing so, whether the court will cut you slack for being less familiar with the procedures and rules, etc., fine. Otherwise to say it is impossible to opt out as a “practical” matter and then say you are “forced” to hire a lawyer without giving any reason why you are forced to do so is, to me, unpersuasive. JMHO…
**

You cannot ‘opt out’ of the system that the lawyers (and their keepers, the judges) have created. Yes, you can decide to go it yourself, but you cannot decide to just ignore the whole matter.

I was ‘deposed’ in a federal case recently. This affair poured some gasoline on my dislike (dare I say hatred?) of lawyers. This was a case (civil, I imagine) between two of my former employers.

I was ‘summoned’ (furthering the arcane imagery of the lawyering profession) to answer such brilliant questions as:

Lawyer: What date were you hired by company A?

Me: I cannot recall the precise date.

Lawyer: Can we assume it was the summer of 2000?

Me: I cannot recall the precise date.

Lawyer: Was it before <event A> in 2000?

Me: I cannot recall.

Lawyer: I would like to enter <insert legalese here> into the record a copy of your employement agreement, dated 15 June 2000. Is this your signature on this agreement?

Me: It appears to be. (WHY THE HOLY HELL DID YOU ASK ME IF YOU HAD THE DATE THE WHOLE TIME, YOU GOBBLER OF FECES?)

And so on. For 3 hours. Even though I prayed to many dieties for the lawyers (both) demise, my prayers went unanswered, also marking that day as the day I became an athiest.
I had NO OPTION to not show up. This case had nothing to do with me (in the common-sense sense), but some stick-up-his-ass lawyer decided it would be fun to waste my time. This wasn’t some murder case. Nobody robbed a bank. It was some BS contractual dispute between two teams of lawyers, and my time was wasted as result of that. To hell with them all.

[pravnik]

If you were being sued, wouldn’t you want people with relevant information that may help you to show up at thier depositions, even though they may not feel like it? It may seem like BS to them, too.

[rexnervous]

*Originally posted by SuaSponte *
**2. You probably could create such a list. But a list of proper lawsuits and logical settlements would crash this server and by compiled more quickly.
The cases of which you complain represent a tiny percentage of all cases in this country. There is a legitimate debate over at which point, in terms of percentages, those types of cases demonstrate a problem with the system. What is not legitimate, in a country of 270 million people, with millions of lawsuits filed each year, is pointing to a hundred (or even a thousand cases) and pretending that those are a representative sample or even have any meaning without context.

Sua **

My question then is why are there millions of lawsuits filed each year? Doesn’t that seem extraordinarily excessive? Is it necessary? Is our society better served by having millions of lawsuits filed each year, or is the greater benefit of such litigiousness mainly the society of lawyers?

See, I also lean towards the distrust/dislike category, and I believe my reasoning behind it (not necessarily valid, I might add) is threefold:

1. The amount of insanely frivoulous lawsuits

2. The enormous rewards and fees paid out

3. The total aggregate amount of lawsuits filed.

And #3 is what concerns this post. Anyone who bothers to read a newspaper/CNN.com/listen to the radio/whatever sees all sorts of suits filed all the time. Class-action this/unfair termination that/didn’t clean dog poop from backyard this/broken contract that ad infinitum. And these may very well be perfectly viable, but there are so many of them. This society has now become one where the perception is that all problems can be resolved through a lawsuit, and so lawsuits have become a matter of first recourse, rather than last. Or, alternatively, a means of tranference of responsibility for resolution (e.g., obese kids v. McDonalds)

And you (or at least I don’t) don’t hear very many lawyers at all voicing concern about this. (Plus, if they did, they’d be sued by other lawyers )

So, the question remains: Why do we need millions of lawsuits filed each year?

[pravnik]

Because millions of clients go to lawyers with disputes they haven’t been able to resolve through other means?

[rexnervous]

*Originally posted by pravnik *
**Because millions of clients go to lawyers with disputes they haven’t been able to resolve through other means? **

Yes, you answered the question as absolutely literally as you could.

My point was more that the perception (and, also, IMHO the reality) is that the last half of your question is now becoming less and less important. Instead, it’s either a) the first resort, or b) an unnecessary but increasingly used method of problem-solving.

As far as the latter, I realize it’s very much an extreme example, but what I mean is something like the Obese kids v. McDonalds, where the resolution to the problem (eating elsewhere, exercising, personal responsibility) is not considered - instead a potential resolution is created by filing a lawsuit. In other words, filing a lawsuit is now thought of as an option regardless of whether it really applies. And I know the lawyers will say “well, that’s something for the court to decide” but for me the question is do all these problems really need to be resolved in the courts at all?

[RobertTB]

*Originally posted by pravnik *
**If you were being sued, wouldn’t you want people with relevant information that may help you to show up at thier depositions, even though they may not feel like it? It may seem like BS to them, too. **

I have (and had) zero deisre to help either party. At the time, I was hoping that I was being very unhelpful. Now, I realize that the lawyers didn’t care. I was wasting a few hours of my life, they were charging whatever loopy figure per hour. Advantage : reptiles.

[Testy]

A couple of ideas that (to me) explain the negative attitude people have toward lawyers.

A) A lawyer doing his best for you generates a nice feeling. Having a friend that knows and understands the law and will help you. The feeling is nice but is completely obliterated by the thought that your legal friend would be just as happy, and do just as good a job, if he were working for the opposition.

B) The requirement for a lawyer. Anyone can represent themselves in a court but, if the opposition hires a lawyer, someone who understands the rules and tricks-of-the-trade; you’re going to lose. Sooner or later it occurs to people that “if there were no lawyers, then I wouldn’t need one.”

Neither of these is sufficient reason to abolish lawyers or take other drastic action but they do cause people to dislike them.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Testy.

[Earthworm_Jim]

*Originally posted by minty green *
All you’re really complaining about there is that other people have different interpretations of the text than you do. :shrug:

That is pretty much the basis of it. When does “the people” not include me? When is a parking lot not for cars? (per Bearflags example.) When can I expect that law-enforcement can, in fact, stop me without any indication that I’ve actually done something wrong? As a non-lawyer, I am not qualified to make any assumption whatsoever about the law nor where I stand within the eyes of the law at any given time.

These semantics games have created an extremely exclusive club of people who can understand and speak intelligently about the laws which apply to all of us. That’s frightening, and it certainly fosters a certain amount of anger and mistrust for “the system” and those who function within it.

[SuaSponte]

*Originally posted by rexnervous *
My point was more that the perception (and, also, IMHO the reality) is that the last half of your question is now becoming less and less important. Instead, it’s [filing a lawsuit] either a) the first resort, or b) an unnecessary but increasingly used method of problem-solving.

And again, why are attorneys to be blamed for this? We have a litigious society - emphasis on society.

Sua

[Regina]

Then explain to me why there are 47 pages of attorney ads in my mid-size city’s Yellow Pages, 20 of them full page, asking things like “Injured? You need an injury lawyer whose job it is to get you the fair compensation you deserve!![their exclamation points],” and “Consumer Fraud? Don’t let people walk all over you.” I agree that it is society that is litigious; however, you can’t convince me there aren’t lawyers who encourage lawsuits. Yeah, yeah, they’re the minority, but they are make the whole profession look bad, and so many people hate lawyers.

Also, when a person goes to consult with a lawyer, how many lawyers first try other means of arbitration instead of directly going to the lawsuit? How many would encourage non-litigious arbitration when they’re suing a person or entity with little assets and would encourage a lawsuit when the entity being sued has gobs of money?

[minty_green]

*Originally posted by Beelzebubba *
As a non-lawyer, I am not qualified to make any assumption whatsoever about the law nor where I stand within the eyes of the law at any given time.

So what? I’m not qualified to make any assumptions about the law either. The difference between you and me is that when I don’t know what the law is, I go out and find out. You seem to be making unfounded assumptions about it based on minimal info.

E.g.:[ul][]DWI checkpoints are legal, so all roadblock searches must be legal.[]The Second Amendment says “the people,” I’m a person, therefore the amendment must protect an individual right to bear arms.Fox News said New Jersey law prevents ballot changes less than 51 days before an election, so that must be true.[/ul]When a client calls me with a legal problem, it is rare indeed that I can tell her right away what the answer is, and that’s after years of school and a couple years of practice in my semi-specialized area of expertise. Making assumptions about the state of the law is a very good way to commit malpractice. We don’t get to make those assumptions as lawyers; you should not do so as a client or spectator.

[rexnervous]

*Originally posted by SuaSponte *
**And again, why are attorneys to be blamed for this? We have a litigious society - emphasis on society.

Sua **

I don’t know…I suppose you could say “no” to a prospective client.

But I’m not trying to debate this point - I was answering the thread. My reasons for the way (irrational it may be) for distrusting/disliking lawyers, and one of them is how litigious this society has become. Fairly or not, the blame falls on the lawyers, especially since there doesn’t seem to be much effort to try and stem the flood from the lawyer community.

Of course, not everyone thinks “More litigious society = Bad thing”’.

[pravnik]

** I have (and had) zero desire to help either party. At the time I was hoping I was being very unhelpful. Now, I realize that the lawyers didn’t care. I was wasting a few hours of my life; they were charging whatever loopy figure per hour. Advantage: reptiles.**

You didn’t answer my question, though. A contract dispute in federal court most likely involves a minimum of over $75,000, no small potatos. If you had to sue someone for $100,000 they owed you but wouldn’t pay you (or were being sued for $100,000 you didn’t think you owed somebody), wouldn’t you want someone with information that could help you to show up to and participate in depositions, even if they didn’t feel like it?

And I know the lawyers will say that’s something for the courts to decide, but for me the question is do these problems need to be resolved in the courts atall?

Well, you knew I was going to say it…that’s something for the courts to decide. I don’t want to leave it at that, though, because you raise a valid point. I see cases I really feel are petty and should not be brought to court at all. However, the parties don’t feel that way; they’re mad as hell and want some Justice, capital J, and their lawyers believe they’re entitled to it. They may not be frivolous in the legal sense, but they could have been resolved without the courts. That’s just my opinion, though, one with which they heartily disagree. In any event, the alternative is limiting people’s access to the courts, whih I think is far worse because the people who have legitimate beefs get the shaft.

Lawyers have been hated for hundreds of years, because they do an oftentimes distasteful job. Even still, I wouldn’t want to live in a world without them. What do you do when the government charges you with a crime? When the insurance company won’t pay your claim? When the petrochemical company won’t stop poisoning your neighborhood’s groundwater?

[Captain_Amazing]

*Originally posted by Roadfood *
**RIght, and why are the forms and the processes so complicated that an ordinary person can’t do them right? Because the lawyers made them that way. **

Actually, most of the time, it’s because he doesn’t read the rules carefully, or puts down what “looks right”, because he can’t be bothered to spend time on the thing.

It’s not a matter of the forms being complicated. We’ll send our clients forms to sign, marked “sign here” and they’ll still sign in the wrong place.