The Lawyer Business

I'm a relatively young lawyer, but I've been out there in the trenches long enough to have learned a few things. One thing I've learned is that there are certain areas of practice that generate "volume business". To me, a volume business in the legal industry is one in which a discount price is acceptable because the hours involved in the case are fairly predictable. Some examples of volume businesses are real estate closings, traffic tickets, and DWI defense.

In my opinion, the combination of a volume business and the practice of law unfortunately works to the detriment of the Constitution, at least in the criminal defense business. Let me illustrate with a real life example. First, some background on me: Before I went solo I had the great fortunate of working with some great lawyers. Our firm's busiest practice was traffic tickets. Sometimes we would have to contract out cases because the court was too far away from our office to make traveling worth the fee. A couple of times, the boss was pretty annoyed with the contract lawyer we hired because he plead our client guilty to the charge. Why would anyone plead their client guilty to the charge? In the typical speeding ticket case you've got nothing to lose by fighting. The answer is time and money. Fighting the charge means going to trial and that requires a lot of work. And now that predictable up front fee you took does not look as profitable. And that is my problem with volume business in the legal industry. That spirit that puts client before profit is often dampened by the economic necessity to be profitable. I don't know what percentage of the traffic ticket business is contract based, but I bet it's big. And that means that a lot of traffic ticket defendants who hire lawyers will never know who their lawyer was.

I'm not sure of a lot of things, but I am sure that I know what kind of lawyer I never want to be. I never want to feel pressured to put profit before client. I read on some blog once that "there is nothing more important to a criminal defense lawyer than to have client." As goofy as it may sound, I strongly empathize with that sentiment.