Being a lawyer turned out different than I thought

[TheRanter]

I have now been practicing law for about ten years and I have encountered difficulties but not the ones that I thought I would encounter when I started.  When I went to law school, I thought that the law was going to noble, rigid, and the clients will be respectfully and would work with your tirelessly to achieve the results (while recognizing that some clients may not have less money).  When I graduated from law school, I started working on criminal, immigration, family, and other matters and expanded my practice into related matters.  Since I began practicing, I have noticed several things that are annoying doing private trial work:

1. Clients are not your friends.  They are not the types of people that were described in law school.  A percentage of law clients are abrasive, dont take no for an answer, make threats (not all friends are actionable), shout and scream, dont cooperate, and often times shift facts to make you the bad guy (ex: you called them many times for an appointment, they dont care and they complain you didnt send a formal appointment letter when they miss deadline).  It is difficult to say anything to some private clients that they dont want to hear without a screaming match starting and threats for refunds, etc.  Some clients look for reasons to sue the lawyer and look for flaws in the lawyer more than working on the cases.  Clients are often times stingy and greedy and lazy and will not cooperate or pay unless they are in jail or there is some other sort of exigency. The clients' family members are often a**h***s too and make unreasonable demands such as for a lawyer who has over hundred cases (at least) to visit their loved one in jail repeatedly when such visits are not necessary for the representation.  Clients will lie.   Clients will ask you to stay at home to make a phone call in the evening and will then cancel the plan.  If you try to talk the client out of the evening call, the client will get upset and say you are inconsiderate for non-accommodating his work schedule. A lot of times you cant pick and choose clients because a volume of clients is needed and you need to pay bills.  Most private lawyers I know make $50k-100k a year and have to chase some of the worse people in the community for the money.

2. Other people in the profession are not necessarily friendly.  Opposing family law counsel will try to provoke you just to gain a miniscule advantage in a case or to look good in front of the client.  Other lawyers may get upset about the types of cases you are taking.  Judges and other court officials may mess with you and for instance call your case last for purely political reasons that have nothing to do with your performance.  Sometimes you will have to say someone else in the system screwed up (it is not necessary to represent a client) but other people will still get mad at you.

3. Being as a lawyer does not bring you nobility. It brings you the opposite.  A lot of times telling other people that you are a lawyer will only bring negative comments like "omg you represent child molesters..." "omg you represent Honduran migrants who take our jobs."  Once they hear about other issues in the firm and the pay, people often tell you that things like "you are not going to find nobility in law anymore" and "law is just a facade for the power structure" and things like "maybe you should switch to computer programming. maybe they will pay you over $100k for a lot less stress".  When I ask the same types of people to hire me, they make statements like "you are very smart dude but you dont have right connections. I hire lawyers with the right connections and if I wanted to learn about law, I would talk to a professor."

Has anyone else heard similar things? Do you feel like the practice of law is not what people think it is and it has lost its glamour?

[basil67]

Dude, anyone who has to work with the public can tell you that human society contains the good, the bad and the ugly.  Look at nurses, they have a far better reputation than lawyers, but even they get some really challenging people to deal with

[Leihla_B]

7 hours ago, basil67 said:

Dude, anyone who has to work with the public can tell you that human society contains the good, the bad and the ugly.  Look at nurses, they have a far better reputation than lawyers, but even they get some really challenging people to deal with

Yep, when I was in nursing, I got threatened, beat up, spat upon, and had feces thrown at me. On the regular. It was all just part of dealing with people in pain and not at their best.

Ask any wait staff or delivery person who serves your next meal how much respect they get, and remember to tip them well.

[accountofapro]

I started practicing general practice law about 10 years ago and quickly opened up my law firm. When I opened up the firm, I was mostly taking on a very small number of clients and doing a lot of free and discount work and I was happy because I could explore issues and cases that I enjoyed. As time went on and the economy and inflation became worse and needs for living increased, I had to take on more clients. I would note that I have a more severe form of ADHD which makes me come off a little "neurodiverse". After COVID-19 clients became more abrasive and eventually escalated into the following issues:

Clients are not usually very friendly typically. They tend to be unappreciative and often look for ways to screw the lawyer (including by lying and otherwise) to further their interests. Clients often times are abrasive and scream. If someone is in jail, the whole family calls daily and screams things like "we paid $2000 and you only saw our relative once in the last week. If you dont get the bond hearing moved up we will be asking for money back" (when for instance I have 0 control and if I approach the prosecutor or judge about moving the case, I will probably just get yelled out; and me offering a massive discount compared to what other lawyers charge for a similar case). Many clients are uneducated and get ticked off by for instance typos made by government agencies and call and scream at my office before even asking questions. Clients often do not care about their case unless their life is about to fall apart or they are in jail (and when that happens they care too much and become obnoxiously loud). Sometimes I am forced to raise my voice at clients to actually cooperate on their own cases because otherwise they wont care to think about long-term legal interests. There is a relatively small amount of decent clients in the law field and a small set of classier lawyers (that I am not part) of take them up leaving the rest competing for problematic/uneducated/abrasive clients (not all of them are obnoxious but it is a decent percent of them). Sometimes a client would scream at you cause you were in a bathroom and didnt answer a phone call. Clients are quick to falsely accuse lawyers of being a crook etc

Since I offer sort of discount services, I started getting crap from other lawyers like jokes: "we clients we dont want we send them to you". When I go to bars and tell people what kind of work I do, I get ridiculed for types of cases I take on and get comments like "go program computers instead". The fact that I offer cheaper services does not mean that the clients like me more. It instead causes clients to make comments like "if I hired a more expensive lawyer, I would have gotten a better result" (despite them likely getting the best result they could and that being undisputed in the field).

Clients often times come with very weak cases and clients often do not see them as such and get angry if you dont want to file weak cases (and in some cases even push you to lie for them which is not allowed). Judges often times get mad over these cases. Regardless of whether I file or not file a weaker claim, someone screams at me.

Family law is particularly brutal. The clients tend to be a**h***s, call every night and dont respect boundaries or have any consideration of your life, and if you dont want to listen to them or try to suggest in any way that their irrational way of thinking is incorrect (that got them into the familial problems they are fact), they get mad and make threats or escalate tension. You cant really change the clients and a lot of times you become forced to present their absurd ideas to court and they will have a hostile relationship with you too. Opposing lawyers are not in any better. They for instance will make statements to purposefully make you feel bad or to provoke you to gain a tactical advantage in their cases. Sometimes you run into a situation where a lawyer is acting unethically but you cant do anything because they have connections with the court they are practicing in.

Does anyone here know anything about the issues I am facing or have any suggestions? I am thinking about shifting to areas of law that involve working with people less but the human aspect of my job as it stands doesnt seem too pleasant. wo major issues I faced in my career so far were: (1) clients judge me based on dress, cost, lack of fancy office, being a bit "neurodivergent" etc. vs. the work I actually do and what I know; and (2) many cases I saw were decided based on relational and unwritten forces rather than the law and facts in a textual fashion as I wanted them to be decided.

I wanted to create novel legal theories and avant garde way of doing things. Some of my "novel" ideas were dismissed by colleagues as counter productive and they told me "you just need to learn how to get stuff done this isnt college". I wanted to reach a point where I make decent money (like $100k/year) but I dont even make that now and people (mostly people I grew up with and went to school with who sort of "compete" with me) began to make fun of me now that I am in my 30s. I want to preferrably make more money, have better clients, but also spend less time with people (unless they are easy going and my type)

I did do many cases to contribute to the community but that wasnt rewarded. Some of the communities of friends began to ridicule me and say things like "maybe you will pay me to represent you" and Iost credibility doing free work. Lower paying discount clients also began to shift the fact that i am inexpensive for me being bad. Sometimes clients use my ADHD and more casual dress style to ridicule me.

Two major issues I faced in my career so far were: (1) clients judge me based on dress, cost, lack of fancy office, being a bit "neurodivergent" etc. vs. the work I actually do and what I know; and (2) many cases I saw were decided based on relational and unwritten forces rather than the law and facts in a textual fashion as I wanted them to be decided. For instance, I have seen judges interpret laws and statutes in a very absurd way to just fit the mold of the community.

There is basically no one else to represent at this time. This is the folk that mostly ends up at my office. Sure, I can give someone from school a massive discount and appeal to them to do their interesting case for them but it doesnt pay bills, and giving them a discount doesnt even get rewarded. The word just catches up that I cannot get the good clients and I beg people to let them represent me on anything "worth the salt" I would need to entirely change practice areas to get a new client base. Any advice?

[NuevoYorko]

Your clients are not supposed to be your friends.  

Maybe you are too rigid.  You seem to be having trouble accepting the reality if what you have chosen as a career.  There is no real reason you need to stick with it.  Your education and possibly some of your experience can server you in other professions, consulting for example.

[Leihla_B]

Can you join a larger firm rather than remain solo?

[BaileyB]

On 10/31/2024 at 4:37 PM, Leihla_B said:

Can you join a larger firm rather than remain solo?

Or go into a different kind of practice - companies retain lawyers on staff, government retains lawyers in a variety of positions. There are options other than private practice. 

[Acacia98]

Another possibility comes to mind: Maybe you could teach law. What qualifications would you need to do that?