Generally speaking, there is a personality type attached to lawyers (much as is the case with engineers, architects, doctors, laborers, etc.). Unfortunately, most of you are pumped-out of the same incubator that doesn’t seem ‘warm enough’ to foster the growth of empathy, sympathy or a strong sense of obligation. The flip side of that coin is a hypertrophied sense of self-importance and power-seeking. Further, and not with out its irony and paradox, most of you are unreasonable and tend to pass the buck. Exactly once, I have met a lawyer that’s even remotely good at holding themselves accountable for something.

Some of you have irrational and irritating clients, yes; this, however, is not cause to not provide a jealous defense – your clients expect you to take their case as personally as they do.

I ultimately left law school and changed my career path because, for all intents and purposes, you are all the same, even before you pass the bar.

I would recommend a self-analysis of one’s character to most of lawyers, but knowing your type, you would find the very idea of that amusing.

I’ll tell you what infuriates me, is when a client fires his previous attorney and hires me, and then I have to get the client’s file from the previous attorney who, guess what, doesn’t return phone calls! Eventually I have to threaten to call the Bar on the other attorney until he eventually mails over his crappy, inadequate, unorganized file. No wonder you got fired.

My attorney does not return calls regardless but, at the same time, he is eager to collect his fees. I am currently in a custody battle in which new developments occur sometimes daily. Many of them quite serious (my daughter is being abused by her mother and I have forwarded to my attorney audio recordings my daughter made while it was happening, for instance). When there are new developments occur in which I require advice from my attorney, he doesn’t return my calls. My wife (daughter’s stepmother) called him the other day and asked how she can limit her own liability in this case. Seems to me to be a reasonable question to ask one’s attorney? No reply. The ball is nearly always dropped. Yet, this guy comes highly recommended. We just don’t get it and we’re getting desperate.

I was sitting in court last month and saw the most remarkable thing: this couple’s attorney was actually *communicating* with them. What a concept!

Lawyers have worked long and hard to get where they are, so a lot of the excuses made in this article hold no water. Who the hell spends 7 years in College for a specific profession and is surprised by what they actually deal with once they’re working? The answer is a DUMBASS. In 7 years, if they’re too dumb to realize what the actual legal profession is like, they’re too dumb to be your lawyer.

The best thing you can do to make your case run smoothly – and make your lawyer and his staff adore you and thus work extra hard for you – is to return calls and email from your lawyer or her staff, especially if they are requesting information. I have clients call sometimes demanding to know why something isn’t done yet, when the answer I keep giving them is “I can’t finish it until you provide me with X.” A good lawyer will have staff update you whenever something changes, and cc you on all documents coming or going from the office.

Sometimes things just take forever and it’s out of your lawyer’s control. The court may be slow, the opposing party may be slow, or the case may just be something that requires a lot of time. Sometimes, though, a lawyer is just bad at business. To become a lawyer, you go to school and pass a test. The test unfortunately doesn’t ask if you’re a disorganized jerk with no respect for his clients.