There are many lawyers who are uncaring and incompetent. They are only interested in themselves and the money they make. They do a lousy job representing their clients. An example is the childrens court where decisions are made about interim accommodation orders and final orders affecting who children live with. I have seen a production line occur in court where the same lawyers swap places with each other around the bar table and the Judge makes orders in quick succession and people's lives are irrevocably altered, often for the worse, and the only ones who benefit are the lawyers and the Judge. If a lawyer comes along who actually cares about their client and tries to represent them properly, it upsets the production line. Suddenly more time is needed to deal with the case and the Judge gets upset and the production line lawyers get upset. Pressure is exerted upon this recalcitrant lawyer who dares to upset the system.
The sad thing is that the client who relies so heavily on his or her lawyer, doesn't know that they are not being represented properly. They may express gratitude to the lawyer who just sold them up the river.
Lawyers get tired and want to go home or have a drink or something else, so they reach agreements among themselves and then try to pressure their clients into accepting the deal telling them that it is the best they can hope for. I think lawyers lose sight of the fact that their clients are putting a lot of trust in them and that they really should try to be worthy of that trust. It is when a lawyer needs a lawyer that that lawyer realises how much trust people put in their lawyer. It is not often that you meet a lawyer who really cares about their clients. I used to be a lawyer and I did know some lawyers that really cared and tried hard, but they are in the minority in my experience. I think sometimes some clients would do better at court if they represented themselves. Clients will always do better representing themselves than using incompetent lawyers.
I have written a self-help manual called "How to represent yourself in court (criminal case)". This manual is available on www.ebay.com.au at the moment. It is written to help the person who does not qualify for legal aid and who cannot afford the cost of a private lawyer. It will help them do better at court.
Another thing lawyers like to do is to try to get the public to believe that they really do need their services when they go to court. Now it is true that a lot of lawyers do know how the court functions better than a lot of non-lawyers do. However in Australia and in some other countries, people have the right to represent themselves if they want to. Judges know this, but big pressure is applied to try to force self-represented people to get lawyers. This could be because the Judges know they have a duty to assist self-represented people and they don't want to or couldn't be bothered, or because they really think self-represented people can't really be successful unless they have a lawyer. I suspect the former rather than the latter.
Lawyers like to try to convince people that they can't possibly succeed in court without their services. They are live the priesthood used to be when the Bible wasn't written in the language spoken by the common people. They needed the priests to read it and explain it to them. Everything changed when the common man was able to read it for himself. So it is with the law. All a law degree does is to teach a little bit of a lot of different areas of law and how to find things. A motivated non-lawyer can sometimes do better than a lawyer.
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