Lawyers are hardworking people. That's for sure. Take this lawyer from Ohio who billed long hours for
court-appointed cases. For instance, he billed for 21, 21.5, 23 and 29 hours of work for 4
different days. His lawyer said he did the work but was simply a poor
record-keeper.
Right.
Not to be outdone, a lawyer
from Iowa billed for more than 24 hours of work in a day on 80 separate days.
He is being charged with a felony for receiving $178,000 for what are being
called improper payments for work as a public defender.
Four other lawyers were terminated from the program for
similar issues.
And you thought doctors worked long hours?
The president of the Iowa State Bar Association called the
findings of the audit that discovered the problems "an isolated
aberration, involving five lawyers. Simply put, a few bad apples do not spoil
the barrel."
Are these isolated aberrations?
I'm not so sure. A lawyer friend of mine (yes, I do have
friends and even relatives who are lawyers) tells me that this is not
particularly uncommon.
He said that lawyers will often schedule 5 or 6 case
conferences at a courthouse over a 2-hour period and bill each client for 2
hours worth of work.
At least one lawyer feels that the
"billable hour"
model should be scrapped because "The billable hour makes no sense, not
even for lawyers. If you are successful and win a case early on, you put
yourself out of work. If you get bogged down in a land war in Asia, you make
more money. That is frankly nuts."
This meshes nicely with a story my lawyer friend told me.
Shortly after he became a lawyer, he proudly walked into his boss's office to
report that he had settled a case in record time. His boss then chastised him
for doing so and pointed out that settling the case so quickly cost the firm a
lot of money.
It's too bad that legal services are a "privilege"instead of a "right."
Then maybe someone other than I would be upset
about how much it costs.
