Why Do People Dislike Lawyers?

If you come to divorce with some trepidation about involving a lawyer, you are not alone. Our experience is that people perceive that lawyers add conflict to situations. This feeling, combined with the perceived expense of hiring a lawyer, is a large part of why people dislike lawyers. You may be surprised to find that we agree with much of the criticism levied against lawyers.

To be helpful in divorce cases, lawyers have to overcome a couple of inherent obstacles. First, the types of people who choose to go to law school are usually cautious and averse to risk. Second, once in law school, those people are trained to become part of the adversarial American legal system, in which lawyers work as zealous advocates for their clients. These seem like positive things, but they can cause problems when it comes to handling divorce cases.

It is rare that divorce cases go, or should go, to court. Because almost all cases end with a negotiated settlement, a lawyer’s primary mission in a divorce should be to help negotiate a reasonable settlement. However, an overly cautious lawyer may regard an offer from one spouse as full of potential problems and may work to address every possible future scenario, regardless of how unlikely it may be. Great care is necessary in creating a comprehensive agreement, but going overboard by raising red flags about every inconsequential detail can lead to a drawn-out process. This raises the risk of one spouse becoming frustrated and losing the desire to settle. It is often the case that there is a time when everyone is very close to agreement. A lawyer who fails to seize such opportunities because of some imperfections in the agreement can cause a case to cost more and be more contentious than necessary.

Lawyers who, partly as a result of their training, view every case as a fight also contribute to the notion that lawyers do more harm than good. They focus their efforts on finding ways to attack their adversary rather than looking for common ground between the parties. A lawyer who focuses on being an adversary will generally drive spouses further apart. This approach is counterproductive, as it lengthens the amount of time it takes for the parties to come together and agree on the major issues in their divorce. In families in which the on-going parenting of children is involved, a lawyer who unnecessarily increases the rancor in the relationship can do damage that can be difficult to repair.

Our final critique of lawyers has to do with their definition of success in divorce cases. As we said, lawyers are trained to be zealous advocates for their clients. They want to get as much as they can for them. The problem arises in how you measure things. Lawyers tend to focus on tangible items, particularly money. The more of the marital estate they secure for their client, the more successful they feel. However, there are other factors that are less tangible but still very important. Our experience is that clients do not measure the “success” of their divorce solely by the dollars they receive, but by how they feel at the end of the process. It is useful for lawyers to remind their clients not to be overly emotional in their negotiations. However, we think lawyers who treat divorce solely as a business transaction and ignore the emotional piece of the picture end up with clients who are dissatisfied with the results.

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