Negative experience with lawyer?

I have actually had pretty good experiences with lawyers. My divorce attorney was young and conscientious and worked hard. I believe he was ethical as well. He looked out for my interest and didn’t over-bill his time. He filled all the motions and kept the ball rolling while my ex’s flaky lawyer sat back and billed him a fortune to let my guy do the work.

Personally my only negative experience is that my brother is a lawyer and he is a jerk. However, he was a jerk long before he went to law school.

I have rarely had to deal with Lawyers (let’s hope it stays that way).

My divorce attorney was awesome. When I first went for my free initial consultation, I wasn’t quite ready to file yet, and he told me what I could do on my own to start the process for child support payments and custody/visitation arrangements. When it got to the point that I did choose to file for the divorce, his rate was more reasonable than others I had consulted ($1000.00 vs. $2400.00 in 1997). While we were separated, my ex attempted suicide, and he worked very quickly to have visitation removed and for me to get sole custody unless my ex went through rehab. He somehow managed to put in the divorce for my ex to pay him $600.00 additional. He could have then billed me for that amount when my ex never paid, but he didn’t. And when I got a letter from a lawyer representing my ex after the divorce, saying they were going to petition to reduce support payments, he promptly and succinctly reminded them that any changes were for future amounts, and wouldn’t effect the sum that my ex had in arrears, nor the amount of the other bills he owed me for based on the divorce.

Bankruptcy was my only other legal process. That lawyer was nice, but he never spoke with me prior to the hearing to arrange for us to meet before going in. So I showed up a little early and went inside and waited for someone to call. When they called my name, he said I wasn’t there – he hadn’t recognized me (which is only human, so then he should have called my name!).

Both of my experiences with two different lawyers were a horror. The second one did nothing yet charged me just to say “hello”. The first one (before I told him where to go) kept going “belly up” to any demand the other side asked for.

My lawyer used to demonstrate to me how he could talk for an hour just to charge me money.

I dislike law sharks so I hunted up a nice guy lawyer I felt I could work with to pursue a lawsuit for me against an insurance company.

The insurance company had a bottom-feeding shark. Even though we were reasended on a freeway, the jury awarded us such a small amount it didn’t cover the legal fees! (The nice guy lawyer felt so bad he only charged us for office admin stuff.)

Turns out I needed a shark.

I’ve only needed a lawyer once, and he was great. I work for attorneys and that has been a different experience. Talk about control freaks. And they know how to talk, but they don’t know how to listen.

Most people who have a dislike of lawyers are the ones who lost a legal case. They also don’t like doctors because they weren’t cured of a condition and blame teachers because they didn’t learn in school.

I agree with @tinyfaery I have hired lawyers and worked for them. Their ubercontrolling means that they hit every point so you get the best advice as a client.

@galileogirl Wow, huge bunch of assumptions there on no data. Also, there are times when the professionals are to blame.

My firm takes attorney malpractice suits. It’s sick how incompetent some “professionals” can be.

@tinyfaery, I never knew there was such a thing. That’s a mind blower! Is there a sequence of things a good lawyer should do the way doctors have to? I can imagine how hard it must be to sue a lawyer for malpractice.

I can’t pretend to know how an attorney thinks. The cases we get seem to be based on negligence to the law itself, and massive overbilling.

@Marina The only assumption I made is that most professionals do their jobs, there are situations that cannot be improved and that sometimes clients just refuse to accept that. I’m sure OJ Simpson had a pretty good opinion of the legal profession until the last few years.

There are a few people in every job who perform poorly, even yours, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be judged based on their actions. I recently tried a new hairdresser who did an awful job, nothing like what I asked for. Maybe he wasn’t a bad hairdresser, maybe I should have gone to someone who spoke English.

@galileogirl
1. You said “Most people who have a dislike of lawyers are the ones who lost a legal case.” How do you know that? What is “most people”?

2. You said “They also don’t like doctors because they weren’t cured of a condition” How do you know that? Where is the data? I know of many people who dislike doctors for all kinds of reasons.

3. You said “blame teachers because they didn’t learn in school.” Now, granted, this is your field. I know may inspiring teachers. I also know many mediocre and poorly educated teachers, teachers have huge burdens today, and there are many reasons children do not learn.

I still stand by my comment that your post is a load of unsupported assumptions.

Well I guess it is based on life long experience but since we are talking about people’s OPINIONS about lawyers it must be anecdotal. Statistics about people’s opinions are based on feelings not quantfiable facts. If you think otherwise, I challenge you to support your stand, statistically. lol

Here is one example written by a lawyer:

“Why People Don’t Like Lawyers

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

So this lawyer is in a doctor’s office in Mount Pleasant yesterday.
She is asked to present an identification with a picture so that her
insurance card and use can be confirmed. She IMMEDIATELY begins to
yell loud enough for my friend (and the other 20 people in the waiting
room to hear): “I am a lawyer and I know the law. Since January of
2008, it is against Federal law to request a picture ID. You should
know this…....” blah blah blah.

After her outrage, the people working at the office AND in the waiting
room (part of any potential venire) were heard to comment, almost in
unison, about how bad lawyers are, how they are and have destroyed
America, etc etc.”

Note: nothing to do with a lost case.

The blog entry contains others.

Anecdotal-this guy, this lawyer-not quantifiable proof

Right, my point was to illustrate that there are other reasons.