[ta1234567890]

> Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity.

Some anecdotes:

- A company I started, hired a big-brand SV legal firm, super expensive. We thought they would be great. But we were so little to them, it was sometimes even hard to get a timely response. In the end we stopped using them, but not before we signed a bunch of documents they reviewed and told us were fine to sign, when in reality those contracts left us fatally exposed (and were in great part responsible for the downfall of the company later).

- Had a complaint filed against me personally earlier this year. The complaint has some truths twisted to paint a mostly false story, but it also has plenty of lies and omissions. The lawyer(s) that wrote the complaint knew what they were doing, yet no one is ever going to get punished for it.

- Looking for lawyers to defend the case (and in previous experiences), I realized that most lawyers have certain formulas or patterns they follow for specific types of situations that they already know how to address, if you don't fall into those, then they'll either pretty much fail at the job, not do what they actually should do (sometimes even if you ask them directly), or just refuse you as a client. It is very hard to find a lawyer that will actually take the time to really listen to you, understand your story/situation and then work on a personalized strategy/solution.

I think that any lawyer that intentionally mis-represents stuff in their work, or tries to shoehorn their clients into their formulas, or just half-asses their job, are seriously lacking in integrity. And by my experience, this seems to be the case for 50%+ of lawyers. A lot of them will probably do a ton of damage both to their clients and their counterparties, and they will never be held responsible.

[pc86]

Per your second point, if you can prove that a lawyer knowingly put lies in a civil complaint that's a slam dunk for the Bar to sanction them. Another way to say "truths twisted to paint a mostly false story [with] plenty of...omissions" is "making a legal argument."

Per your third point, I was once wrongly accused in a criminal case. I was a nobody, random person making like $30k a year at the time but was able to retain someone from K&L Gates. I think he felt bad for me because he basically lobbied the partners for permission to take me on at a reduced rate (like $1.5k total). A couple letters and a court appearance later and the misunderstanding was rectified. But the important part is I was obviously a nobody, the partners at this firm bill tens of thousands of dollars a day. $1500 is probably less than a single office location spends on coffee in a week. But this guy sat with me for hours going over the case and where the problems were.

[ikeboy]

There's a big difference between a lawyer who will take a case and a lawyer who can handle a case.

I agree 100%. One thing I do is look for similar cases and contact the lawyer on the winning side.

The "formulas" do save you money, though. Would you rather pay 5k for them to use an existing template slightly edited, or 25k to write a complaint from scratch? It depends on the case, there is no right answer.

You can also literally just look up a lawyer's cases on PACER and see how they write, see if they've won, and use your judgement as to whether they're an effective advocate. If you're dealing with a big case, this is absolutely worth doing.

[ta1234567890]

You have excellent points, and I hope I had known them many years ago.

One of the main issues for non-lawyers is that the first time you need to hire a lawyer, you have no idea what you are doing, so there's a huge learning curve and a lot of information asymmetry to overcome.

[dependenttypes]

I do not want to dismiss what you are saying (in fact I find it extremely interesting) but don't 80%+ of people in all professions (or even out in society) just suck? I am more surprised that you consider 50% to be the minimum of bad lawyers rather than a higher percentage.

[ikeboy]

80% of doctors don't suck.

It's not that lawyers suck, per se. It's that you're dealing with an adversary, and if you get a 50th percentile lawyer to go against a 90th percentile lawyer, well, you could still win if you've got a good case, but it's certainly not as likely as the reverse. In many cases you get what you pay for.

[srtjstjsj]

80% of doctors (especially cheap ones like the lawyers mentioned above) would fail to get optimal results in complex scenarios like presented above, just like the lawyers.

[ikeboy]

The doctors wouldn't be put in that position, though. While lawyers will often gladly take a case that they have a low chance of winning without fully disclosing that.

[dependenttypes]

> 80% of doctors don't suck.

You would be surprised. I do agree with the rest of your post however.

[drewmol]

Yes! Also, satisfaction scores are pretty low for people who've been indicated for aggrevated murder, same as if you're diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. If your goal is to walk away free and unharmed then just about everyone is gonna suck, most of the time. Also, you can't bribe cancer.

[ikeboy]

Difference is, your family doctor isn't going to try giving you chemo treatments.

[ta1234567890]

Not sure about percentages, but it is definitely true that for any professional service, most people are just trying to make some money and go about their they without being bothered or caring too much. So you almost always have to deal with people that don't care about you or your situation and will just give you some template solution that fits their situation and their past experiences (not yours).

In particular it is very evident with doctors when they see you for barely a few minutes and diagnose you. Sure, if it's something super common you'll be fine, but if it's not, good luck trying to convince them to keep digging. They seem to think they are always right and you have no idea what you are talking about because you are not a doctor.

[mleonhard]

Or most people do poor work 80% of the time and good work 20% of the time. I think most people are capable of doing good work, if they are motivated and free of distractions.

[bob33212]

I worked with a lawyer who thought his job was to negotiate a contract with the least amount of liability for us. In theory that sounds good. But these contracts ended up sounding ridiculous to customers with statements like:

"Under no circumstances will vendor be liable for any damages in excess of 10% of the purchase price of the vendor services"

Customers assume you are trying to scam them with language like that. But he didn't care, he just wanted to be able to be proud of how little liability we took on. I finally had to point out that the best way to reduce our liability is to shut the company down and end our need for legal services all together.

[sunstone]

I've dealt with almost two dozen lawyers over the past twenty years and I am quite knowledgeable about the practices of stock brokers. In both cases it seems that the chances of getting a practitioner, at random, who will work with you in good faith is closer to 20%. Getting both honesty and capable ability is lower.

And then there is the family law lawyers ("it's not family and it's not law" according to one) but it does line a lot of lawyer's pockets at the expense of the public, at least in the five eyes. Most other jurisdictions have opted for a saner system.

So, yes, it's jungle out there. Imagine if your doctor prescribed medicine that would make you sicker so that he could charge you more later. If you don't have good reliable connections going in you really need to be careful, shop around until you find someone who seems good and honest, and then pray.

[ovi256]

re "Had a complaint filed against me personally earlier this year." - unfortunately, the fact that the plaintiff's lawyer painted that picture is what's expected, and required of him. He advocates for his client, in the best way possible. Painting the most favourable picture for his client goes with that.

[dodobirdlord]

Yes, but in a reasonable world "lies and omissions" ought to result in disbarment.

[lmilcin]

Well... certainly not omissions. The job of a lawyer is not to lay down facts but to know and understand the law and use the knowledge to argue on behalf of their client. It is prosecutor's job to lay down facts without lying or omitting. In fact lawyers have obligation to omit facts when it is a wish of their client.

[dodobirdlord]

The scenario I’m quoting from seemed like it was a lawsuit. In that scenario I think it’s clear that omissions could reasonably be grounds for disbarment. I happen to think that filing a sufficiently brazenly frivolous lawsuit should result in the lawyer who filed it being disbarred. Whether or not a lawsuit is frivolous can easily hinge on omitting information, like suing someone for trespassing on your property but leaving out of the filing that they have an easement to travel on your land. If a lawyer agrees to file such a suit for their client, knowing that such an easement exists, they should be disbarred for it.

[lmilcin]

I am not versed in US law (I am neither a lawyer nor from US). Generally, lawyers are not exempt from the law and can face professional responsibility (called disbarment in US).

Lying to a judge is grounds for disbarment but in general a lawyer has no obligation to verify clients' statements.

It would usually be difficult to prove what the lawyer did or did not know but, hypothetically, if you could prove that the lawyer knew that there was no trespassing then a statement to the court to the contrary can be construed to be a lie and result in consequences.

[dodobirdlord]

A lawyer could be disbarred for lying to a judge, but in practice it is extremely infrequent that lawyers are disbarred, even for relatively severe misconduct. I also personally think that the standards for what constitutes misconduct should be more broad, and should extend to cover bad faith use of the legal system for purposes other than seeking legal rulings, like harassing people or wasting their time or money. The existence of default judgements, where the defendant has to appear and present a defense or be found responsible in even the most flagrantly illegitimate of cases incentivizes lawyers to carry out filings in bad faith.

For example, lawyers in the US routinely file or threaten to file defamation suits in scenarios where the law is clear that no defamation has occurred. I feel that in such situations the most charitable interpretation is that the lawyer is an idiot, and the less charitable interpretation is that the lawyer is a criminal. When a judge considers and ultimately dismisses such a suit, two options present themselves. Either the lawyer is so incompetent as to think that the suit had legitimate grounds, in which case they should lose the ability to file such suits, or the lawyer is maliciously exploiting the legal system for the purpose of harassment, and should similarly lose the ability to file such suits. The fact that judges largely refrain from sanctioning lawyers for even the most severe misconduct results in a world where wealthy individuals are frequently able to use the legal system or the threat of the legal system to harass individuals like journalists into not discussing their activities that are of public interest.

A similar example manifests in patent law, where patent trolls can pursue expensive sham litigation with impunity, to the extent that an entire market exists based on shaking companies down by threatening legal action and offering a settlement for less than the company will have to pay in legal fees to eventually prevail against the sham accusation.

[srtjstjsj]

Yes, that's why this thread is talking about lawyers being unethical in helping people break the law and escape justice.

[lmilcin]

I don't exactly see it this way.

Every person has a right to defend themselves. Even guilty ones, because until proven, how would you decide they are or they aren't guilty to figure out they have right to defend?

Most people don't know the law enough to adequately defend themselves. Even though you have the option, you would usually be well advised to use help of somebody that knows the law very well because knowing it is their profession and helping you is responsibility.

Just think about this, half of the population has intelligence below mean (ha! not average! but close). You need to generally be highly intelligent to be able to adequately dispute and represent yourself in a court.

So while I loath the fact that criminals use lawyers to escape prison I also recognize that this is their right and that lawyers serve an important function in a society the same way policemen who stop you for speeding or tax auditor looking through your papers do.

[kwanbix]

twisting the truth shouldn't be expected.

[throwaway_pdp09]

Do you disagree with "Painting the most favourable picture for his client goes with that"

Semi-related but very valuable advice, if well-known - when I was off sick the council brought a complaint against me. They actually lied and implied criminal behaviour (fraud) on my part (also not turning over all the evidence to the tribunal that followed). So here's the important bit:

DO IT IN WRITING AND KEEP COPIES OF EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING YOU WRITE, EVERYTHING THEY SEND YOU. INSIST ON IT BEING ON PAPER (NOT TELEPHONE), AND PRINT EMAILS OUT.

I could rebut almost everything bad they said about me. The tribunal threw out their case before I even turned up.

(I know this is obvious and everyone says get it in writing, but things would be smoother if people actually did).

[ovi256]

But there is no truth in an adversary justice system (and I'm not sure about the other systems either). There are only the parties' differing perspectives (if they were not differing there wouldn't be a complaint) and a court ruling at the end, which we take for impartial.

[michaelt]

Imagine I receive a letter from a lawyer saying "It appears your product A infringes our client's patents B and C"

That's fairly clearly a statement of fact - that in their professional opinion they believe their client has a reasonable chance of prevailing in court.

Do lawyers not have an obligation to display good faith and professional candour in making such statements of fact, even to their adversaries?

[smichel17]

I do not agree that's clearly a statement of fact. An unrelated example that demonstrates why: laat week, I was having a (text) conversation with two other people, and I made a comment to the effect of, "I think it's a waste of time for you to argue about X, figuring out how to do Y would be more productive instead." To which one of the other participants responded, "...but we were talking about Z, not X!"

The literal words we had written were the facts. Their meaning was up for interpretation. If something as basic as the subject of a conversation cannot be necessarily be agreed upon, something more complicated like "does this infringe on a patent?" certainly has room for disagreement.

[caro_douglos]

Lawyers love to send letters. They also can fold when your attorney responds letting them know that the letter’s assertions are incorrect.