Lawyers Should Still Hire Other Lawyers To Perform Their Legal Work
Neutral counsel is the best way to have an unbiased advocate ensuring that emotions and biases do not get in the way of legal work.
There is an old expression among lawyers that goes something like “he who represents himself has a fool for a client.” The gist of the axiom is that individuals may not have the expertise or perspective necessary to adequately represent themselves, so it is prudent to seek independent counsel to handle a matter. Despite the common understanding that interests are better served by independent counsel, some lawyers decide to represent themselves in legal matters, even in situations with which a lawyer may not have much experience. For a variety of reasons, lawyers should usually still hire other lawyers to handle their legal work in a number of situations.
Perhaps most importantly, lawyers should hire other lawyers if this will save time for the lawyer that can be devoted to other purposes. Sometimes, lawyers may not wish to bother themselves with a given legal issue since the amount of time it would take to learn the fundamentals of the matter involved with the legal issue does not justify taking the case pro se.
For instance, several years ago, I got a traffic ticket in upstate New York a few hours from where I lived. After getting the ticket, I knew that I never wanted to travel to that part of the state again for the purpose of fighting a ticket. While I was upstate, I looked on my phone for respectable lawyers, and I literally walked in off the street into a lawyers’ office. I paid the lawyer’s fee to handle the ticket for me while I was there, and the lawyer did amazing work for me. It was definitely worth the money to never have to travel to that place again, and the lawyer also knew all of the people and procedures involved in the traffic court in which my ticket was processed, which might have helped with the disposition of the matter.
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Lawyers should also hire other lawyers to do their legal work if they do not have sufficient experience with the matter to be handled. For instance, several years ago, I bought a condo, and an attorney is usually involved in reviewing the contract of sale and other paperwork involving the purchase. My realtor suggested that I conduct the contract review myself and save money on a lawyer.
However, I ended up spending the money to pay a lawyer to handle the contract review and closing. I did not know anything at the time about residential home purchases, and this attorney and his staff provided good counsel. Moreover, the experience of seeing this lawyer in action gave me the confidence to handle residential home purchases and sales later in my career when I decided to open up my own firm, and I might not have had the expertise to handle such matters if I did not hire that lawyer back then and had the benefit of his counsel throughout the home-buying process.
Lawyers should also hire other lawyers to handle their legal matters so that a neutral perspective can be heard on a matter. When lawyers handle a matter for themselves, their work may be biased by their own emotions and feelings surrounding a case. For instance, the lawyer may not be able to see insufficiencies in their arguments and might not be able to approach an issue from an outsider’s point of view. This can have a negative impact on the matter, since good legal arguments need to take into consideration all of the information, perspectives, and issues surrounding a matter. Neutral counsel is the best way to have an unbiased advocate ensuring that emotions and biases do not get in the way of legal work, and lawyers should hire counsel even if they could handle a mater themselves.
Moreover, hiring a lawyer might have other, more subtle, advantages to a representation. For instance, counsel are far more likely to be open to a lawyer representing a client than a self-represented lawyer. Attorneys are usually more guarded and cannot be as casual in conversations with principals to a case, and this can impact settlement negotiations and other parts of a matter. In addition, courts are far more likely to award attorneys’ fees to a party that is represented by counsel than a lawyer who represents herself if a statute or contractual provision authorizes an award for attorneys’ fees in a given matter. The availability of attorneys’ fees can be an important motivator in settlement negotiations, and hiring a lawyer may put leverage on the other party. Also, lawyers who represent themselves may not be taken as seriously by adversaries than lawyers who hire counsel to represent their interests. Hiring an attorney shows that a party is serious and has taken the appropriate steps to safeguard his or her interests in a case.
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In the end, lawyers know full well how attorneys’ fees can be expensive, and lawyers may be tempted to represent themselves if they face legal issues. However, lawyers are usually better off if they retain counsel to perform legal work on their behalf.
Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.
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