
Going to court without a lawyer is new normal for U.S. litigants - hhs
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-22/going-to-court-without-a-lawyer-is-new-normal-for-u-s-litigants
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eurticket
[Sort of off topic] From what I've seen in my limited experience with the US
court system is split a couple ways:

Having no money in a court room results in you:

\- getting a public defender that is incredibly overworked and underpaid;
which results in your case having the dice rolled on if they are able to spend
the time to successfully represent you.

Having no experience in a court room results in you:

\- pleading which could have possibly worse results than if you tried the case
and played it out naturally. It's not always appropriate for the case, but
sometimes a lot of people plead to simply return to work. There is also a lot
of cops that linger around doing just this, making you plead by handing you
forms saying you need to sign this. Any inexperience in traffic courts for
example makes you think you need to sign this, resulting in the scenario
above, possible points for a no violation type offense.

Having money but no experience in a court room results in you:

\- retaining a lawyer on your own dime; the money adds up, and if they don't
find a way to represent you in your situation quickly, you're going to pay for
every adjournment the lawyer may need. If you're searching lawyers, be sure to
ask if they have big workloads, because the ones that have a smaller, more
manageable number of ongoing cases are going to be your best bet obviously.

The thing about too many ongoing cases is the current courts situation dealing
with overworked public defenders and lawyers. Not having the time it takes to
focus on each case or creating mistakes due to burnout & fatigue. After having
even one negative experience with a public defender or lawyer like this, I
could easily see people wanting to represent themselves or like in the
articles case, they aren't even guaranteed to get one in a civil suit.

~~~
cosmie
My last two employers have both offered Hyatt Legal group plans[1] as a
voluntary benefit.

I signed up because it seemed like a potentially useful benefit and
~$9/paycheck was a tiny enough cost to impulse check that box without much
thought.

It's turned out to be one of my favorite, most used company benefits. Both
companies have carved out different services the plan covers, but in general
it has covered every instance I've ever needed to leverage a lawyer for
personal needs. And removes the impetus of having to find/vet/pay a lawyer for
smaller work like reviewing and drafting legal documents that I otherwise
would have done myself and hoped I covered everything well enough.

It gives you the benefit of the second scenario, without the unpredictable
costs of retaining a lawyer directly. If your work offers it, I highly
recommend getting it.

[1] [https://www.legalplans.com/](https://www.legalplans.com/)

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Are there any conflicts of interest in this, e.g would they represent you in
an employment dispute?

~~~
henryfjordan
I'm not a lawyer, and there are a lot of little facets to these rules so I
could be wrong.

This looks basically like a "legal costs insurance", so the company pays into
a fund that then pays the lawyers. I assume the company has no control over
the money once it is in the insurance fund. So long as the lawyer doesn't
represent the company directly in other dealings then yes they should be able
to represent you in an employment dispute.

If the company was just providing direct access to their in-house counsel then
no, that'd be a conflict of interest.

~~~
SisypheanLife
Most legal plans offered, even through third parties, explicitly do not cover
employee-employer disputes. This has been the case at both Microsoft and
Amazon that I have seen.

~~~
henryfjordan
That's just rude. I think so long as the funding is out of the company's
control there's no ethical violations but again there's a lot of rules and I
could be wrong.

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cheez
I can relate. Last year's tax return put income at around $600K. So I'm not
poor. I have found it very difficult to find a lawyer who is actually
interested in getting to a solution rather than dragging it out forever.

Here is the cost of filing an agreement negotiated between me and a counter
party: $5K.

$5K for you to call someone and send over some paperwork. Sure, i can do the
work myself but I could do it wrong, and judges don't like that. In fact, a
judge initially rejected it until we had a lawyer.

Can I even get someone on retainer? No. Because the retainer is used up in the
first phone call. Useless waste of money.

In my mind, lawyers have gone from people who used to be the bedrock against
tyranny and are now rent seekers.

Unbundled services are a step forward, but then you lose the benefit of
context.

~~~
rhino369
So you make 600k and you think lawyers charge too much huh.

~~~
mikestew
The way I read it, the _legal system_ charges too much. It isn't the lawyer's
problem that the legal system (according to parent's anecdote) requires $5K
worth of legal services. DIY isn't even an option.

Besides, who cares how much parent makes? If people making those kind of fat
stacks complain, how the hell is a barista supposed to get a lawyer?

~~~
cheez
Bingo. I can afford it. Others can't.

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cobbzilla
Hypothesis: the Bar Association is a cartel; limits supply, keeps prices high.
The supply of lawyers is artificially constrained, while the volume of civil
litigation only grows larger every year. One used to be able to self-study,
pass an exam, and practice law. Now it virtually always requires 3 years of
law school, at a cost of thousands.

~~~
henryfjordan
The license to be a Barber or a Hair Dresser is a cartel, but you would never
say the same thing about requiring doctors and civil engineers being licensed.

Being represented by an under-qualified attorney can ruin your life. You can
go to jail because your attorney was incompetent. When the consequences are
that high, we need the Bar.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Being represented by an under-qualified attorney can ruin your life. You can
> go to jail because your attorney was incompetent. When the consequences are
> that high, we need the Bar.

The same concern cuts both ways though. It's just as problematic to have rules
that raise the cost of legal services beyond what some people can afford,
because not being able to afford an attorney can lead to all the same dire
consequences.

~~~
henryfjordan
Because we have laws requiring a lawyer be provided in a criminal case and we
have high standards for lawyers, you theoretically will get a good lawyer even
if you cannot afford one. Of course the public legal system is incredibly
under-funded so in reality this doesn't work out.

Let's consider this from a different lens though. "Bridge Engineers are too
expensive so lets make the requirements to become one more lax" is obviously a
dangerous idea. There is a minimum amount of knowledge and experience a person
needs to be qualified to build a bridge. If you cannot afford to pay someone
who meets the requirements, you have no business building a bridge.

The issue is funding, not the requirements.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Because we have laws requiring a lawyer be provided in a criminal case and
> we have high standards for lawyers, you theoretically will get a good lawyer
> even if you cannot afford one. Of course the public legal system is
> incredibly under-funded so in reality this doesn't work out.

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice
there is."

> "Bridge Engineers are too expensive so lets make the requirements to become
> one more lax" is obviously a dangerous idea.

A lot less dangerous than the alternative of not hiring a Bridge Engineer at
all and still having to build the bridge, which is the analogous situation for
legal services.

> The issue is funding, not the requirements.

Not necessarily. Standards can be inefficiently high. It's not worth spending
A to avoid a 1% chance of losing B when 100A is more than B.

~~~
henryfjordan
> A lot less dangerous than the alternative of not hiring a Bridge Engineer at
> all and still having to build the bridge, which is the analogous situation
> for legal services.

That is the absurdity here though, that people are being forced to build a
bridge with no support. With more funding, we could provide an engineer for
every bridge (and a lawyer for every case). Nobody should be forced to go
through the legal system without an lawyer. Period.

The number of lawyers has been growing in recent years. It's hard to claim
standards are too high when more people are becoming lawyers than ever before.
See:
[http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyer_population_15_...](http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyer_population_15_higher_than_10_years_ago_new_aba_data_shows)

But those lawyers aren't working as public defenders because it's probably the
worst job to take once you've invested in a law degree in terms of pay and
stress. And until the funding situation changes to make that job more
desirable, people will continue to suffer no matter how many lawyers there
are.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> That is the absurdity here though, that people are being forced to build a
> bridge with no support. With more funding, we could provide an engineer for
> every bridge (and a lawyer for every case). Nobody should be forced to go
> through the legal system without an lawyer. Period.

That's fair, but then you're also talking about a foundational change to the
legal system. Just providing a real public defender to criminal defendants
would dramatically reduce the number who take a plea, and then you're not just
funding public defenders, you now need more prosecutors and police officers
and judges because there are so many more cases where the defendant would have
their day in court. That would explode the budget so much that the proposal
would be politically impossible without some significant changes to the laws
(e.g. end the war on drugs and do something more meaningful than we ever have
before about poverty) to dramatically reduce the number of criminal defendants
to begin with. Which is what we need -- but that's hardly just a matter of
funding. It requires a huge political change.

And it gets even worse for civil cases, because then you're going to want to
fund the plaintiffs as well, otherwise you're back to the little guy being
unrepresented. But then you're creating an incentive for plaintiffs to file
thousands of frivolous lawsuits at taxpayer expense to try to find one that
sticks, because who benefits is no longer aligned with who pays. Spending
money reduces barriers which multiplies the amount of money you would have to
spend.

The only way to reduce the cost is to _actually_ reduce the cost, i.e. reduce
the number of man-hours it takes for a given legal process, not just change
who is paying for it.

> The number of lawyers has been growing in recent years. It's hard to claim
> standards are too high when more people are becoming lawyers than ever
> before.

The claim isn't that the standards are preventing people from becoming
attorneys, it's that they're raising costs on clients. If you over-regulate
nuclear power, the problem isn't that then nobody wants to be a construction
worker and build nuclear plants, it's that it makes nuclear cost more than
fossil fuels like coal. And that, even when it does get used, it still costs
more than it should because you're imposing rules whose cost exceeds their
value.

------
mnm1
I tried to get worker's compensation in Washington state but couldn't find a
lawyer anywhere in my area willing to take my case. One actually agreed to
meet in person but told me his payoff is based only on the payoff I get. I am
not legally allowed to pay him outside of what he would win for me. My payoff
would have been lots of physical therapy, doctor visits, and the like. What's
20% of physical therapy? I never heard from him again and ended up just giving
up on the case. This was despite or because of I had already had a case in NJ
which I couldn't continue due to lack of any doctors willing to take it. It's
a great system for the state when you have zero chance of winning. I wonder
what Washington state does with all the money it collects and refuses to pay
to the people that need it. Other than paying doctors to review cases for ten
minutes, violate their Hippocratic oath, and say they don't think the injury
is work related when it obviously is.

------
jedberg
The way legal cases are funded needs to change. You shouldn't have to put up
money up front to try a case, but of course then we would need to figure out a
way to discourage frivolous lawsuits.

But I'm sure it could be done with some sort of escrow system or something.

Imagine a system where both parties put in however much they are willing to
spend, and then 5% of the pool is given to each side for their upfront fee,
and then the rest of the pool goes to the winner of the case, or maybe the
judge gets to divvy the fees or something.

Then if a big corp and a frugal individual go up against each other, the big
corp can put $100,000 in and the other person can put in $5, and neither party
gets an advantage because both lawyer teams get $5,000 up front. Or something
like that.

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Aloha
As someone who represented themselves in a similar sort of case, and
successfully repulsed the effort to collect, I have sympathy - the civil
courts system gives a slight bias to people who have lawyers - like in my case
a default judgment was granted before I could even get my filing in (before
the deadline), and then was withdrawn when I submitted my filing.

Writing a brief is hard if you've never done it before, and there is no easy
guide to figure out what you need to do to make the system work for you. I
represented myself at first because I couldnt afford a lawyer - then the case
just sat in an existing but no filings state - then later because the
plaintiff scheduled a court date without notifying me, and I only had a one
day notice to drag myself into court.

------
siegel
There is significantly more price variation in legal services than many
(particularly in this cohort) seem to recognize. I admit my own bias here, but
I don't quite understand why many in the startup world feel the need to go to
1000+ lawyer international law firms for early-phase legal services. Do any of
you hire Ernst and Young or Deloitte to do your startup accounting?

A lot of folks pay a lot of money for legal services because they seem to
think they need to hire the same lawyers as Facebook and Google. You hire
those same service providers, don't be surprised how much you pay.

------
anonu
Pro se plaintiffs should pass some sort of light bar exam (some sort of
licensing). And they should be made to pay higher fees to access the court
systems. If they lose more than 3 times in a row they should be banned from
the court systems entirely.

This is only to weed out the aholes who run frivolous suits hoping for an easy
pay day when defendants settle to avoid protracted and useless litigation.

Also we should get rid of the "American rule" which prevents defendants who
prevail to seek damages from frivolous plaintiffs.

~~~
Aloha
Access to the legal system is a _right_ not a privilege.

Also, this article talks mostly about people representing themselves while
defendants.

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neonate
[https://outline.com/AWGsb8](https://outline.com/AWGsb8)

------
skizm
Sounds like an opportunity. Live chats with lawyers for significantly lower
prices than in-person consultation might cost. You can represent yourself, but
get guidance from a real lawyer. Sounds like something that already exists
since it seems obvious in retrospect, but not sure.

~~~
tryptophan
The problem is that non lawyers are not allowed to own law firms. And what
lawyer wants to work over low cost chat sitting in a room all day? That's part
of why this sort of service doesn't and will not exist.

~~~
dman
Any reason why there is a restriction disallowing non lawyers from owning law
firms?

~~~
rayiner
State bars don't want outside investors or non-lawyer executives directing the
conduct of lawyers. (Also, why would you want to allow non-lawyer ownership of
law firms? The reason you have corporate structures is to be able to raise
capital. Law firms require very little capital.)

~~~
eldavido
Law as currently practiced, does not require much capital. You're correct
about that.

But legal services in general are an expensive, labor-intensive craft
industry. Just like any craft industry, there's probably scope for low-touch
industrialization alongside high-end bespoke craftmanship. Clothing is a good
example of what I'm talking about--rich people have tailors, everyone else
buys off the rack. What you have now in law and may other professions only
works for the high-touch case.

Atrium (google them) is trying to get around this by having a traditional
high-touch law firm use a lot of software provided by a standard silicon
valley-financed venture capital startup. They're basically laundering legal
fees to the startup side via the law firm. I'm not sure of the exact
legalities but we need more stuff like this.

Access matters. A system that, for completely well-intentioned reasons,
attempts to guarantee that everyone only gets the best, means the low end will
never have access at affordable rates. It's simple economics. Until
practitioners work for free (they won't), or there's some way to do things
more cheaply, the bottom won't get served.

~~~
rayiner
The atrium model isn’t problematic at all. Law firms use software built by
third parties all the time. (West Law, document review platforms, etc.) You
don’t need to permit non lawyer ownership of law firms to have that.

