Word: lawyer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...ethics code revision is clearly needed, and the best in the profession want to see it done ?and enforced. "Lawyering," suggests Eric Schnapper, a New York public interest attorney, "is within the relatively narrow category of occupations where borderline dishonesty is fairly lucrative. In many instances, the very art of the lawyer is a sort of calculated disregard of the law or at least of ordinary notions of morality." Under the current code, he notes, only selected and flagrant violations result in a disbarment. Writes Schnapper: "One searches in vain for a lawyer disciplined for failing to give free...
Even with a more clear-cut ethics code, it will be no easy task to root out a number of legal practices that inflate clients' bills, slow down the due administration of justice and provoke public hostility. "Lawyers love to play games," says Dallas Attorney G. William Baab. The games are invariably good for the lawyer, occasionally good for his client and rarely good for society. Among them...
...LAWYER SUITS. After a Government agency brands a particular action as illegal?an increasingly familiar story in regulation-happy Washington ?a hungry group of lawyers may quickly file a lawsuit on behalf of a class of aggrieved people. Hastily preparing their case (sometimes by simply copying the Government's complaint), they settle as soon as they can justify a large legal fee, regardless of whether all the injured members of the class have been adequately compensated...
CONTINGENCY FEE. Most personal-injury cases are taken by lawyers for a percentage of the gross award, often one-third if the matter is settled before trial, perhaps 40% if a costly, risky, laborious trial is actually necessary. This creates a potential divergence of interest between lawyer and client. Since the potential additional reward for trial work may not be worthwhile, many attorneys encourage their clients to accept even an unreasonably low offer from an insurer...
...PRACTICE. According to Sidney Roberts, a New York tax lawyer, there is a "Gresham's law of tax practice" in which daring practitioners drive out the more conservative ones. The reason is obvious: clients want to pay as little as possible to the tax collector without actually breaking the law. Although most lawyers deny it, some firms charge clients a percentage of taxes saved. Boston's Hale and Dorr, having saved a client $4.5 million in taxes, submitted a bill for $760,000 for 2,000 hours' work ?a cool $380 an hour. A court upheld the bill...