While lawyer-hate is blown way out of proportion, one has to admit, it’s quite funny that having a negative opinion of them goes back to before Shakespeare. A character in Henry VI, Part 2 (act 4, scene 2, line 73) argues that “The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers,” reflecting that, at least among the common folk, the legal profession was not popular.
While there are cases of lawyers with questionable morals, more often than not, a lot of hate stems from the fact that they simply understand the arena they play in better than most people. If you have ever seen someone attempt to represent themselves in court, you will know just how poorly that often goes.
Because lawyers historically were often asked to execute the laws of others and because they tend to have a very good understanding of what they can and can’t do, people on the receiving end might end up quite unhappy. English poet John Gray, as part of The Beggar's Opera, stated that “If Lawyer's Hand is fee'd, sir, He steals your whole estate.”
It doesn’t help that, for example, many law school graduates indicate that they want to go into corporate law, which most folks see as a sort of amorphous, amoral blob. Even worse are the “ambulance chasers.” For those outside of the US, an ambulance chaser is a “strategy” where personal injury lawyers will seek out the scene of an accident and attempt to convince the victim to sue.
While these cases do exist, it’s important to remember that a lawyer is just one component of a larger game. Between laws, those who make them, those who enforce them, the courts, and the members of the jury, there is a lot more going on than just greed. The stress and drama of a trial can get to lawyers as well.
At the same time, many now-lawyers talk about law school as if it were boot camp, which might be a tad dramatic. There is no doubt that it’s hard, but there are folks in literal life-or-death professions who don’t complain as much. That being said, if one is dealing with criminal law, the stakes can be quite high.
