Originally Posted by Unregistered

I'm sorry you had the misfortune of working with the disreputes of the profession.

I have an idea of what you're talking about. In my line of practice, I face off a fair bit with lawyers from from the big firms and the small firms.

Despite the lay facade of glamour and "learnedness", there really are 2 stratas of the legal profession.

Its unfair to tar all lawyers who work in solo shops with the same brush. But the sad truth is that many small practices have unethical and dishonest practitioners whose actions bring disrepute to the profession.

Just operating towards pure profits, without any thought about conducting themselves with civility, competence or honour. To say nothing of an actual passion for the law or justice or advancing their clients' interests.

Needless to say, their concern for their trainees and associates, if they do take one under their wing, is bottommost on their priority list.

The level of technical skill in some of these lawyers are sorely lacking. To them, the practice of law has long since become secondary to the primary motive of whatever profits they can get. Perhaps they were once young idealistic associates who aspired to become proficient lawyers too. That level of idealism has since died somewhere along the years of practice.

The unfortunate side effect is that their lay clients, the man-in-the-street who needs access to justice most, are badly served by poor lawyering.

One would recall that several years ago that a bunch of conveyancers were rounded up by the Society for accepting referral fees.

Let me tell you that these things still happen more often than is generally let known.

I started legal practice with a naive notion that the things I do professionally as a lawyer would serve society, whether directly or indirectly.

I do now see that some things lawyers are capable of doing are more of a drag on society than really creating any value or serving any real need.

If you do remain in practice, I hope you find a good mentor who will teach you the value of practice and who hasn't lost that idealism of the good that lawyers can do in society.