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“Cancel rent” won’t work
What’s the real solution?
Back when I was practicing law full time, I would periodically receive calls from people looking for me to represent them for free. When I would explain to them that, like them, I could not work for free, they would inevitably exclaim “but you can afford it… Lawyers are rich.”
To any practicing attorney or anyone familiar with the economics of law practice, that statement is absurd on its face. Most lawyers work very hard to achieve a comfortable, middle class life. There are those who reach the top 1%, but those are rare. The reality is that it can be a fulfilling profession that can support an attorney and his or her family comfortably.
But there is something particularly ironic about that statement. Even when lawyers do well financially, they achieve this success by representing clients who pay them. If clients don’t pay them, as many of mine didn’t, then they won’t be rich. In fact, they won’t even be able to pay their basic expenses.
Lawyers, of course, are frequently the butt of jokes. These wisecracks, however, mask a certain base resentment of the profession. People only hire an attorney when they are in trouble, so it seems as if the lawyer is profiting off of people’s misery. At the same time, lawyers seem to work to system to make money for their clients or get them off…
