That's a pretty impressive list. Legal Eagle. But I don't think it needs to be quite that long.

Most rational people understand that even villains have the right to effective representation. All the other "reasons" are just fluff.

Except one.

Lawyers are by nature expensive. Though when you get results, they pay for themselves many times over.

But when you spend four consecutive hours in a meeting with six lawyers - half of whom are billing you - over a couple of clauses in an otherwise straightforward contract, it is difficult not to arrive at the view that you are being milked.

Six people arguing over the definition and boundaries of "best efforts" at a combined rate of $50 a minute is a gut-wrenching experience for small business.

There's no protection against it. If you decide to take your business elsewhere, it costs you literally thousands of dollars, just to explain what you need. And the next thing you know, you are back in that room, arguing the toss over "for the avoidance of doubt", or "nothwithstanding the generality of the foregoing".

At fifty bucks a minute. Plus GST.

It is difficult not to be aware, as the lawyers introduce themselves at the beginning of the meeting, that their mindless bonhomie is costing more than a cup of coffee. Or that each time one of them pauses to lean across to pour a glass of water, there goes another dollar.

The price ticket is already high. So the sight of a roomful of people wilfully wasting your hard-earned cash showing off to each other, engenders a lasting antipathy.

That can so easily turn to active dislike and distrust.

Fix the billing-for-old-rope problem, and we might even be able to shake your hand without that deep-seated feeling of resentment, that "that just cost me".

Well said Pericles. My second blog post ever was on why the current billing system for lawyers should be abolished, so it's been a bug-bear of mine for years. It's not good for clients, and it's not good for lawyers (promotes a culture of long and insane working hours). What is more, billing units provide an incentive for lawyers to be inefficient.

I agree totally, lawyers should reform the way they charge clients.

This article misses the reasons I dislike the legal profession.

This is my list.

1 Lawyer's interchange the phrases 'legal system' and 'justice system' when there is no correlation between the two. Don't go to a lawyer expecting justice because all you will get is the law.

2 Lawyer's used to be paid by the word. Hence never use one word when you can use ten. This is the basis of 'legal' language that in reality has no legal status. If lawyer's spoke in plan language it would be seen that they not saying much and are largely redundant.

3 Following from this if the law and contracts where written in plan language people would know what they are signing instead of just thinking they know what they are signing. Legal language becomes a clever way of hiding hidden traps.

4 'Legal argument' consist each side finding the most obscure little law that makes their client legally 'right' even though he/she is as guilty as hell (and vice versa). This gets played out in courtrooms as clients on both sides paying through the nose for lawyer's to engage in the mental masturbation of protracted courtroom 'contests'.

The solution? Stay away from lawyers.

The problem with lawyers is their fees. These are structured so that they get million dollar plus salaries,fine homes and motor cars and expensive holidays. And who said they had to have offices in the most expensive real estate in town, surrounded by walls and floors of polished granite and marble.
There are many other professions and occupations who contribute more to society and receive much less. The difference is that lawyers have us over a barrel - we have no choice but to pay their exorbitant fees. We have no option but to hire them in what is virtually a closed shop of the courts. Lawyers take sides so that others have to join an expensive game of attack or defend.
Where else do people hock themselves for years, or sell their houses, to pay for the services of another human being?
The only solution that I can see would be to reduce all legal expenses (and therefore salaries) by half. The world would keep turning, and maybe we'd all think a lot more of lawyers and their role in society.

If I remember correctly, there are more politicans with a law degree, than any other representative group.

To analyst: Where else do people hock themselves for years, or sell their houses, to pay for the services of another human being?

To the specialist medical professional but not quite to the same degree as the legal profession and quite possibly you end up with a positive result, your life for instance and of course we all have a choice of public health versus private. There is no such choice for legal representation unless the "no result no pay" system still exists with some solicitors. Trying to fight a bureaucratic bungle legally seems completely out of the reach of ordinary people.

So is it any wonder nobody loves them. If depression is a proplem in legal circles I suggest that the legal professionals try cleaning up their own act and putting out a more user friendly persona. It's not rocket science. Just give value for money.