Lawyers and solicitors constantly receive a bad reputation from public opinion. Why is that? Most lawyers are just people with a profession like yours who just want to earn honest money. Just because a small portion represent huge corporate interests that are unpopular, they have been demonized by the general public. I hope to provide you in this article with some of the myths about lawyers that are constantly being passed around by word of mouth without any facts to back them up. Lawyers are one of the cornerstones of business, if we didn’t have them, criminals would go free and the innocent would be executed.
1. All lawyers are sharks: The truth is that they are in a very competitive business that requires heated debate as its hallmark. Some take this as far as manipulating circumstances to appear as they wish or force higher agreements, but that’s a small group. There are thieves in America, but do we assume that all Americans are thieves? Most attorneys are honest men and women trying to make a difference in the legal systems of their communities.
2. Lawyers are overpaid – Oftentimes, lawyers are actually very underpaid for their services. The average court case requires much more than what you see in the courtroom. Legal documentation can be some of the most tedious reading ever, it can take a long time to go through it and make sure you haven’t missed anything. Before setting foot in court, they have to interview you, design a report for the judge, summarize your case, and review all legal documentation and evidence. This equates to hundreds of hours typically, even a burger flipper would get a few thousand dollars for that amount of time and effort.
3. Lawyers try to extract cases – This is completely person to person and exists in every industry, your mechanic does it, your employees do it, etc. Most lawyers have so many cases that solving them all quickly would be refreshing, often they have finished dozens of other cases before they can put together a brief for a complicated one. Most of the time this is not due to malice or greed, but because the case is very complex and requires many legal hurdles to be overcome.
4. All good lawyers are loud and boisterous: This is not always the case, much of the “magic” they perform is paperwork and hours of intense study. The news has sensationalized the image of the lawyer banging his fists and almost committing contempt to achieve true justice. The true crusaders of the never-ending court battle do most of their work in the quiet of their offices. Many times they don’t even have half an hour of time to talk about their case. Passion for justice and their clients’ cases is great, but it’s not always exemplified by boisterous natures.
5. All Lawyers Hate Each Other: Sometimes in court hearing motions, one of the lawyers is succinctly defeated in a way that damages their reputation. This causes you to lose business and, in turn, revenue. This will cause animosity in any industry, but it does not mean that all lawyers burn their bridges, if that were true, there would be no firms or associations. Often times, the nature of the legal system causes many attorneys to work together in many arenas and then meet in opposition the next year. There is a certain camaraderie among lawyers in most larger cities. They are competitors in the same way that sports stars are, when the most played games have no hard feelings about who won or lost, it is the fans who rage at each other, just as the clients do at the Lawyers.
6. All attorneys have approximately the same training – This is completely untrue and makes it appear that only experience makes a competent attorney. In reality, the situation is much more complicated than it seems. A probate or probate attorney will not necessarily be a competent defense attorney. Additionally, location and available resources largely dictate how well educated a lawyer is when he leaves law school. If they lived in an area with a large population and many seminaries, they were likely to be better trained than someone practicing in a small town. Also, the laws change so frequently that age can even cause a problem because they can work on the basis of old laws.
7. You don’t need a lawyer – Wrong. The insurance industry wants us to believe that attorneys are an unnecessary bulge in the legal system; they just want to keep more of their settlement money. They have entire divisions within their companies designed to reduce payments to the minimum necessary. Even outside of that, some people think that taking responsibility for running your own defense is smart. Do you honestly think you know the legalities of our complicated system better than someone who deals with it on a daily basis? An attorney is going to have resources and information that would not be readily available or apparent to the average citizen.
8. If I already have an offer, I don’t want a lawyer: Some people find that they don’t want to talk to a lawyer once they see the amount of money being offered, fearing the lawyer will take a big chunk out of it. part. After all, the common fee is more than 1/3, but with an attorney on your side, your settlement offer may be much higher. Often you will not make claims for items because you are not sure if you legally qualify, a good personal injury attorney will be able to find the items you missed and more often than not make the increased amount much higher than the original offer. .
9. Insurance rates are going up due to lawsuits: This is looking bad, of course insurance rates are going up, but that’s not the lawyer’s fault, it’s the high profit margins demanded by the insurance industry. sure what causes this. increasing rate. Frivolous lawsuits are not caused by Lawyers but by the demands and deceit of their clientele. Insurance companies will use any factor they can to justifiably raise rates and legal costs are an easy scapegoat.
10. Trial Lawyers Charge By The Hour – Some attorneys charge an hourly rate, but this is far from standard practice, there is precedent that was made only decades after the founding of our country that made it possible for anyone to obtain representation for a fee. a percentage of your prize at the end of the trial. They do this at great risk, they could end up spending months fighting a case that their client lied to them about and not earning any money for their hard work.
One industry or another designed these myths, they take advantage of you being afraid to approach a Lawyer. These industries see huge profits by cutting legal fees out of your budget, if they can make you fear a lawyer, then when they tell you they think you don’t need one, you’ll listen. The worst thing you can do is decide not to seek legal representation, your opponents won’t be that dumb, although many industries tell you not to seek a lawyer, they will always use the services of a lawyer for themselves. Lawyers are normal people with a complicated profession, not unlike many professions. They are providing a valuable service, and for my part, I don’t want to have to read every article of the law regarding breaking my ankle on a college campus if such a situation were to occur. So do not fear them, consult them for wise advice as you would any expert in any particular field.