'The industry is still stuck in a "no one knows what to do about this problem"'
It's not that nobody knows - nobody cares. The lawyers will always advocate for not hiring anyone "risky". Be that criminal convictions, dismissed charges, or people with disabilities.
> When one person associated with the attorney is a plaintiff in 200 lawsuits, it does start to seem opportunistic.
Wait, why? Certainly one would expect that a lawyer might have a specialization, say, ADA compliance. And you'd equally expect that a person in a wheelchair who is more likely to notice/care about ADA compliance.
It doesn't strike me as that odd, it just seems like, "Hey, why is the city I live in so busted for me? I thought there was a law that was supposed to give me access? Why is no one paying attention to that law?"
A lot of the hiring people just don't have the authority to contact legal and request a change to an agreement because the implications of that change must be reviewed by expensive lawyers.
Why would anyone hiring anyone anywhere, much less across jurisdictions, not hire counsel? If you don’t you’re almost certainly exposing yourself to more legal risk.
This isn’t about legal costs, it’s about people who are accustomed to exploiting legal benefits in their favor being upset that one avenue is less advantageous for them. They’ll take their low risk stakes to another table and whine about the previous one in hopes the advantage will open back up for them there too.
Their real mistake was dealing with a lawyer in the first place. My dad told me years ago that you want to avoid dealing with lawyers at all costs, because most of them are vicious selfish sharks. Sure there are exceptions, but there are few, if any, occupations with as high a percentage of people like that in it.
> I'm sure there's a market for the middle ground (inexperienced but cheap lawyers), and a reason no one can access (eg regulation)
There is no such regulation. A fresh graduate could theoretically argue a case in the Supreme Court--it just requires a pro forma application and payment of a $200 fee to be admitted to the Supreme Court bar. A JD you hire for $20/hour on Craigslist can, legally, represent you in almost any proceeding, as long as she is upfront with you about the fact of her inexperience (and is willing to shoulder the malpractice risk).
There is no market for inexperienced but cheap lawyers, at least for business litigation. If you're a plaintiff, you can get experienced lawyers to work on contingency. If you're a defendant, you have huge potential exposure if you lose the case. If you really have no money, the plaintiff will realize it can't get blood from a stone and will settle cheaply. It would be incredibly risky to roll the dice and try to fight with a lawyer who lacks experience.
I imagine it’s mutually beneficial to keep quiet. Lawyers don’t want to be known as “the company that keeps firing clients”, clients don’t want it known how many lawyers have fired them.
This seems like the equivalent of saying "prosecutors aren't going away, and adding defence attorneys on top of that is not an improvement if they share the same flaws".
Lawyers are famously hated around the world. But it's almost universally better to fight one if you have one on your side. Same with unions and companies. Having worked in two companies in the last few years in the same market, in the same area, one union and one not... The difference is night and day in favor of the unionized shop.
> Their job is to represent their client and bring about the best case possible
To be clear, the current issue is not that they do or don't believe the case on its merits, but that they don't believe they have enough time to push the best case possible.
> The best case is that lawyers feel the pinch, because that’s maybe the only way we’re ever going to see real legislation to protect people in this area.
Probably not; while lots of legislators (and lobbyists) were trained as lawyers, protecting the jobs of people who actually practice law isn't really something that shows any evidence of being a priority in that class; in fact, a large majority of them spend much of their time railing against practicing lawyers as a class.
Unless the political and electoral calculus forces them to adopt protections (to which the threat to practicing lawyers is pretty much irrelevant), don't expect any action.
It's not that nobody knows - nobody cares. The lawyers will always advocate for not hiring anyone "risky". Be that criminal convictions, dismissed charges, or people with disabilities.
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