Ethics in Law and How to Recognize Legal Price Gouging

Ethics in law today has become little more than a saleable commodity in many western legal systems. Many disaffected people seeking justice for a wrong perpetrated against them simply aren’t finding restitution or satisfaction. The law, it seems to many people, fail them. What they see is the high-priced Lawyers wrangling words and getting the wrong-doers excused or exonerated. 

Ethics isn’t, nor has it ever been, a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder but in many western legal systems today that is all that it has become. When a Judge freely admitted to me that the Law is not about fairness in justice, I knew that it would never be there for ‘the average Joe or Jill’ and needed to be avoided at all costs. 

Many laws today are simply based on language rather than ethics. When language replaces justice, ethics has become redundant in the equation and has no further part to play in righting a wrong.  

To complicate this change even further the western-world now accepts price gouging Lawyers who charge “legally” for their services under the guise of ‘business’. Running any Law practice today does cost money as does any business; but Lawyers now charge extraordinary fees today for simple communication updates to their clients. If a Lawyer calls you about a matter even if you only speak for three minutes, you will most likely be charged for fifteen. This is the way they have structured their ‘fee’ schedule to keep their practice profitable. 

Any law firm should not be a business. It should be a “fee for service” the same as for a hairdresser or a Doctor. If a hairdressing salon started to charge clients for every phone call making a hair appointment, then we would all probably have long hair. But there would still be hairdressers around because they are needed. If Law firms started charging a ‘fee for service’ there would be far fewer dissatisfied clients on the streets or in business and Lawyers would be working in a more respected occupation. 

Legal price gouging and three ways to inhibit costs

1. Inhibit excessive fees by asking for a fee for service quote. It’s unlikely that you will get one but this then gives you the opportunity to put a restraining price on the matter. The drawback is that an unethical Lawyer won’t do much towards finalising the matter but charge you to the maximum anyway.

Lawyers ‘get-away’ with charging high costs because they don’t work on a ‘fee-for-service’ basis. They charge an hourly rate and these hours that are charged to your account, are very malleable. If an opposing lawyer on the other side needs to meet their monthly quota of funds to the practice, they simply make unreasonable and unnecessary legal demands on your Lawyers time. 

2. Go to mediation with your legal matter before it gets into the hands of Lawyers. To find your local legal mediator start with your local court. 

3. If all the above fails and you haven’t been able to reach a satisfactory agreement in the matter and still need a Lawyer, then make sure that you have all the documents required to prove your case. Do as much of the legal-legwork as you are comfortable with before handing the case over to a Lawyer.

I hope you are now more aware than to expect justice based on ethics from today’s legal system. If you are also more aware of how Law firms charge clients then you may be a little wiser before expecting restitution from a court of law.