| This is an extremely bitter take. I'm sorry you apparently have had one or more negative experiences. Speaking as an ex-lawyer who left the profession, there are definitely myriad things wrong with it. However, your statement is a dangerous one. It's a ludicrous thought to try to run a company of any size/complexity without at least occasional legal support. As expensive as lawyers can be, trying to navigate legal obligations & requirements without counsel can be disastrously more expensive. As with anything, it comes down to who you hire and for what purpose. With your mention of motions and such it seems you're mostly talking about litigation. Yeah, litigation can be extremely expensive and there are absolutely firms that appear to want to drag out cases to charge more fees. A lot of this is a problem more with our civil legal system here in the US (civil as in civil vs. criminal, not civil vs. common law). Litigation has become nearly pay-to-win -- but a lot of the fault for that can be laid at the feet of megacorps and tort """reform""". So yes, litigation can be eye-wateringly expensive. But the best way to avoid litigation is to judiciously use the services of legal professionals. This may shock you, but the vast majority of lawyers are in it for nothing more than a 9-5 career and out of the satisfaction of navigating tricky situations, and the vast majority of lawyers in the US make significantly under six figures -- which doesn't go very far when paired with shocking student loan burdens. So by all means, avoid keeping megafirms on retainer. They certainly have motivations to find work for themselves. But luckily, there's a fairly good alternative -- in-house counsel. If your lawyer is on your payroll, they have zero incentive to do anything extraneous. Furthermore, you can rely upon them to keep an eye on any additional outside counsel you may need -- to tip you off if they think you're being charged for make-work. If you can't afford the payroll hit of in-house (which does not have to be enormous, we're talking in the 70k - 110k range for a good, experienced counsel), then seek out recs for smaller firms with track records of representing small businesses. I know this comment has come across as defensive, but trust me, I have nothing to be defensive over. I left the profession for good reasons and have nothing positive to say (and plenty negative) about what we call biglaw. I guess it's just the vestigial shell of a lawyer still living inside of me that cringes whenever I see someone strongly recommending businesses avoid legal representation. It's just asking for disaster. |
> But luckily, there's a fairly good alternative -- in-house counsel. If your lawyer is on your payroll, they have zero incentive to do anything extraneous.
This sounds like a good way for companies to mitigate the issue of perverse incentives, but how can individuals benefit from this?