He who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.
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In my “day job” I talk to a lot of Millenials who want to go into health care practices as “associates,” working with baby boomers. These young people come to me with contracts and want my opinion. I don’t give legal opinions (I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on TV), but I do walk them through the contract and ask questions: “What does this mean?” “Why is this section here?” “Here is what I think this means.” And sometimes, “What the bleep is this?!”
I recently saw a contract that was written by the hiring doctor. Himself. It was full of typographical errors, incomplete sentences. Worse, it was unclear. The terms of payment were not stated clearly (was the associate getting $3400 a month, or a day, or a year?), the length of the contract was “two years or more” (now what does that mean?), and there was a lot missing, like what state laws the contract was applicable too.
Now, I’m not out to make lots of money for lawyers, but they do have a legitimate purpose, to save people from getting into bad contracts that can be major problems later.
I just read the new John Grisham book The Appeal about a couple of small town lawyers who get a verdict for their client, the plaintiff, in a wrongful death lawsuit against a big, bad chemical company. The book clearly contrasts the appealing lawyer couple with the mean, money-hungry, evil company. Are trial attorneys the problem? I’m not telling you the ending, but I can say I wasn’t totally satisfied.
Lawyers get blamed for all the evils of society (Grisham himself said, “My decision to become a lawyer was irrevocably sealed when I realized my father hated the legal profession.”), and lawyer jokes abound, even back as far as Shakespeare’s time (“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” – Henry IV, Part 2).
But if we all tried to be our own lawyers, we’d be in worse shape than we are right now.