Don't forget the plea bargain, where they threaten you with the death penalty and life in prison unless you confess.
Iwas in divorce court with my ex. I was required to pay her attorney fees, as such - I could not afford my own attorney.
As I was talking to the judge, her attorney was balking, sniffling and laughing at the things I was saying.
I stopped, turned to her and said "Excuse me, you're not being very professional"
She physically recoiled, and said "what!"
The judge said "I am sorry, what did he say"
The attorney said "I don't know - he mumbled and threatened me under his breath!"
THe bailiff began to scream at me and get in my face threatening to take me to jail.
I turned back to the judge and said "No I did not! I told her she was being unprofessional for making snide comments and sounds while I was discussing my case with you. There is audio recording of everything in this room. Replay the recording."
The judge dismissed the whole event, as she knew it were shenanigans on the part of the lawyer.
The bailiff continued to glare at me.
I gave the law firm a poor review on Yelp, Sagaria Law in San Jose, ca. Yelp kept removing it as Sagaria law kept contacting them about the reviews.
I will never respect or trust a lawyer again. This is endemic in our society.
If you have had the fortune of having a lawyer do you well, good for you. I have never once experienced this. I have many examples to draw from.
EDIT: well well well, you're actually a lawyer. No wonder your bias.
Many examples:
* Didn't read my filings prior to court
* Forgot our conversations, and misrepresented my statements
* charged thousands, never showed up in court
* threatening me
* accusing me of threatening them (example cited)
* charging many thousands of dollars for retainer, while never doing any hours of work aside from a 30-minute phone call
* charging me telling me they could achieve a certain outcome, then telling me that there was nothing they could do and it was out of their control.
Yeah - fuck that.
Sure, there are bad lawyers like there are bad examples of anything else you care to name. It sucks that you've had a bad time of it, divorce court can't be fun.
But the fact that every interaction you've had seems negative - with your own lawyers, opposing lawyers, judges and even bailiffs (who are essentially non-legal admin/security staff) reveals a pattern. Eventually you have to ask: Is the whole world crazy, or just me?
Disclosure: I am a lawyer. I've had very difficult clients in the past. I generally get along well with clients, opposing counsel and even the opposing clients (to the extent we interact).
Most bar associations operate a referral service that weeds out lawyers with bad histories. You pay the bar ~$100 and they give you the contact info for the next lawyer in the queue who practices in the field you need.
At least this way you can be sure of getting a lawyer who does not have a history of screwing over any clients badly enough to get a complaint filed rather than a lawyer who did not screw over the one client who happens to be your friend.
That is good advice though ^_^
On what basis are you suggesting that one or two anecdotes don't allow me to completely profile an entire population of millions (in the case of gender Billions) of people?
In this case, the wife's lawyer appeared to believe that she was in a cultural milieu where it was acceptable practice, not only to jeer and snort on the sidelines, but to lie to the judge about what the OP said.
The problem is that those attorneys are typically reserved for the rich, so most people don't interact with them, with the exception of some truly excellent public defenders and prosecutors.
With regard to your experience, I can't imagine an attorney not respecting the decorum of a court room like that. If I were the judge, I would have issued a warning and held her in contempt if it continued.
Further, if I found out that an attorney made a false allegation of a threat in my court room, I would report them for an ethics violation for lack of candor to the tribunal instantly. There is no room for that type of nonsense in a court of law.
I'm sorry about your experience. That attorney, who does not deserve the title, is both a poor lawyer and a terrible excuse for a human being.
In general, they are not reserved for anyone.
They just get tired of clients that won't pay, usually, after they told the client "it will cost 30k to do what you want, and you will lose anyway"
So they ask for larger and larger retainers, etc.
Further if the judge was ignoring you then file a complaint with chief judge.
Chances are nothing will come from a single complaint, but if a pattern emerges sanctions or even disbarment can be the result. I guarantee it will be more effective than a Yelp Review