Do Bad Lawyers Create More Work For The Rest Of Us?

Last year, we had a company called Deck Defenders clean and stain our deck. By this year, the deck was a mess and the stain was actually peeling.

I just finished talking to the guy who is going to do our deck this year. He works for Deck Doctors (talk about trademark issues). We were talking about how much clean-up work he had to do for this other company and the fact that he was actually getting bad-will as a result of the closeness in the company names. I told him to change the name. But as we thought about bad-will, we ended up thinking about the increase in demand for services as a result of the clean-up work Deck Doctors has to do for jobs done last year by Deck Defenders. After discussing it, we agreed that the bad quality by Deck Defenders actually increased demand for services.

Do bad lawyers drive up profits for good attorneys? Of course, the answer is yes. The real question is what are the qualities of a bad lawyer. A bad lawyer simply argues about everything for no other reason than he/she is being paid by the hour. A bad lawyer never tells their client how they are going to win the case or achieve the client’s goals. A Bad lawyer keeps their client in the dark and tells the client not to bother them. A bad lawyer fails to prepare their client for deposition.

Do bad lawyers drive up the overall cost of legal services? Of course they do. I dare anyone to suggest to me that it is otherwise.