Outsiders and the Legal Profession

The way outsiders view lawyers and the legal profession remains a constant source of amusement to me. Setting aside all the lawyer jokes and blood-sucking lawyer references, people often seem to be under the impression that lawyers can do magic, making problems go away with some carefully uttered magic words in exchange for a large check.

More than once, even as a lowly law student, I have been asked complicated legal questions by people who expect me to know the answer off the top of my head, as though law school teaches the solution in detail to every legal problem or issue that can ever arise under the sun. I think it's somewhat akin to medical students getting asked about all their relatives various health problems.

The truth of the matter is, this is not what lawyers do. Our job is to zealously resolve the legal problems of our clients and as quickly and as efficiently as possible, but that process doesn't happen in the blink of an eye. Lawyers are trained to do several things when someone brings a problem to them. Once the issue is presented, a lawyer's mind starts working for possible solutions, doing research (often long hours of it) on the law and its meaning trying to come up with various approaches and strategies, like examining the possible moves in a game of chess. These options then have to be discussed with the client, and the client has to be convinced why one may be better than others, even if it doesn't appear that way. All of this takes time, and it is what lawyers are trained to do. In some ways, lawyers are like engineers in that they are trained with a specific skill set necessary to solve certain types of complex problems ... it is just that our problems are legal, not structural or mechanical or mathematical.

As a result, when anyone asks me about a complicated legal issue, my first answer is almost always "maybe" or "it depends" because there is no magic to do, only research and time and mental legwork.