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Comment by jsprogrammer | Hacker News Reader

A lawyer can only represent a single entity during any given billable unit. This means the independent lawyer is completely dependent on other individuals for their entire income which must support all of their outlays.

If a lawyer is entitled to the same work schedule (40 hours/week) as everyone else, then those 40 billable hours must be paid enough to support those outlays. That is why legal services are expensive. You are not just paying for a unit of work, but rather, subsidizing a lawyer's entire lifestyle.

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Offtopic, request to viewers:

Please don't downvote without explaining why, responding, etc. I'm not asking you to debate the OP which you desire to downvote, but to simply explain why. Feel free to preface it with "I'm not going to debate you, or even reply to you, but here is why i downvoted you:"

My reason for wishing this is, in areas that another viewer (myself, in this example) is unfamiliar with the topic at hand (law, lawyers, and etc) - a downvote can often be confusing. Is what the OP said non-factual? Are they bending the truth? Or is it simply a hot topic?

Anyway, i could go on, but i'll likely end up wandering. Thanks for reading.

I think this is something that Digg got right (at some point, I believe). You had to submit some reason why you were burying a post. I would perhaps go farther and require the user to provide a free-text answer of a minimum character/word length to register a downvote.

You actually seem to be getting downvoted. I don't know what to call that...

Some classification of irony, I'm sure.

This is why I almost always automatically upvote posts that were downvoted away....

And do lawyers typically incur considerable expenses during the course of their business? I guess I'm not really sure what outlays you are talking about.

I think by "outlays" parent was referring to net income, i.e. take home pay plus benefits. There are outlays however. An office for a start. Most likely at least a part-time assistant. Computers/subscriptions to various legal services.

In addition, a 40 hour work week probably translates into something more along the lines of 20 billable hours given the inevitable variation in case load, personal time off for whatever, ongoing education, etc.

Basically, it's the same reason that any consultant-type job (which a small law practice effectively is) has to charge hourly rates that at first blush may seem pretty high just to translate into the equivalent of, say, a $100K salary at a typical corporate job.

Lawyers who bill by the hour generally bill out their paralegals and administrative staff as well, at proportionally lower rates. So it's not just lawyers who are billing much of their time.

Mortgage/rent/utilities, food, clothing, transportation, etc.

Probably similar to your outlays.

Clothing, office, status are all more expensive than for say a programmer. A lawyer, to get clients, must "look successful." And a clever t-shirt costs a whole lot less than a discount suit.

Heck, I know of people that rely on swag to provide them with Tshirts for life.

As a work from home programmer/IT guy, I can definitely relate with swag as work wear. I make it a rule to be dressed decently while working (cause frequent video conferencing/meetings) but I'm not going to put any more dollars into it than I need to until and unless I have to leave the house.

Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw access are essentially required to look up relevant cases. (to rile your fairness sensibilities, look into how much of a near-monopoly is enjoyed over public info there). That can be, IIRC, thousands/month.

Then, depending on your area of work, you've got issues like software to record and cite websites, continuing legal education requirements, etc.

Not the most expensive profession in terms of base costs, but not cheap either.

Lawyers who bill their time by the hour also bill their Lexis/Nexis or Westlaw fees back to their client.

Annual licensing fees (state bar fees) and professional liability insurance are things that programmers don't pay for* but lawyers do.

*Some programmers have insurance but not to the extent that lawyers are required to have it.

You can't just charge what your credit card bill and rent add up to. The market doesn't work like that.

Yes, a persistent lawyer will have to manage their income and outlays and we must consider the other side of the market.

As income rises so do outlays, outlays that can get tied up in ongoing obligations (mortgages, utility bills, car payments, telecommunications services, investment schedules, etc.). The supply side of the market (lawyers) quickly have incentives to be paid more for the same or less hours of work: so that they can support more outlays (kids, hobbies, greater projected retirement fund returns, etc).

Of course, clients can just take their money and cut off the inflow to lawyers as you suggest; it is a definite risk.

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