[dvtrn]

Also a lawyer I know that does patent stuff says law firms will file motions they know have no hope of success because it's free money

IANAL but I'd imagine bar associations would have a lot of issues with this, wouldn't they?

[Gibbon1]

You have to up and up hard bilk your clients or do something illegal to get the bar pissed at you.

Sometimes it's not the lawyers but the clients with deep pockets. My friend spent ten years litigating one case over MOSFET patents for an unhinged client. And they lost 95% of the time against another well funded company.