who do you think gives the worse value for money

[Gerben42]

I know many lawyer bridge players, but I've never been in contact with a lawyer about law stuff.

 

I don't know any drug dealer, but I do know pharmacists and that's not an easy job...

 

Estate agents? I'm hoping for a future where they are not needed anymore, but they seem to do a useful job. Don't know if their fee is appropriate or not.

 

Window salesmen? If I want double windows, I'll get them myself? Do they come to your house and try to sell them to you in your area?

 

Car salesmen: Mine gave me a good deal :D

 

Financial advisors: I found mine very helpful dealing with all the complicated financial stuff in Germany.

 

Life style gurus: I think these are great, just don't spend any money on them if you're smart but people seem to need them.

 

Athletes: I'd prefer it that the famous one would have to pay sports tax, so that the non-famous ones can compete even though they are not attracting zilliions of spectators. For example if Tiger Woods would pay the USBF so that they can send a team with all cost reimbursed. In that case no sponsor for the Bermuda Bowl would be needed.

[jtfanclub]

Put me down for Insurance agents/HMOs claim agents.

 

They're the only occupation I know who gets paid to NOT work. As in, the more they can refuse to help you, the more they get paid.

 

A lawyer has to worry about repeat business and the bar. A lifestyle guru's reputation is everything. And so forth. But I seriously doubt that any HMO agent has lost his job because he refused to pay a claim, and made the poor guy go through arbitration.

 

Wasn't it "the Incredibles" that made fun of this? God help you if you actually try to work with the customer. At least the IRS agent has no financial incentive to make your life a living hell.

[helene_t]

Reminds me of a system administrator at the first place I worked for. He had made a database called "complaints". You could enter customer complaint forms into it. Out of curiosity I tried to run a query on the database to see what kind of complaints had been filed. That made the system crash.

 

Me: "How am I supposed to get data out of the complaint database?"

SA: "You aren't. The DB is a black hole, and intensionally so".

[kenberg]

Reminds me of a system administrator at the first place I worked for. He had made a database called "complaints". You could enter customer complaint forms into it. Out of curiosity I tried to run a query on the database to see what kind of complaints had been filed. That made the system crash.

 

Me: "How am I supposed to get data out of the complaint database?"

SA: "You aren't. The DB is a black hole, and intensionally so".

Absolutely correct. We moved a couple of years back and called to have cable for the computer installed. Some days later, I was looking out the window and saw some guys digging up the front lawn. I investigated and found out that they were from the cable company. So I called the company and said that if someone is going to dig up my lawn I expect them to ring the doorbell and identify themselves before beginning. The woman on the other end was very well trained. She apologized profusely and assured me that she completely agreed with me. I said I wanted a callback from someone other than herself to assure me that this had made it past the first stage and she assured me that someone would be calling me very shortly. OK, two years and counting. Best I didn't hold my breath until the phone rang.

 

I don't complain that often but some years back, during my single years, I felt that the son of a woman I was dating had been treated badly by the police. I had given them a cat, cats look alike, a neighbor guy claimed the cat was his (it wasn't) and called the police who took the cat from the kid with no checking with anyone. A police rep came out, I explained (I thought completely) and the rep explained that the officer had behaved exactly correctly. But the rep had misunderstood what I had said and when he finally got it, he again explained that the officer had behaved exactly correctly even though this newly understood exactly correct behavior was now in direct opposition to the original presumed exactly correct behavior.

 

 

This so-called self-regulating, self-policing, self-correcting stuff is a crock of *****, pure and simple. The home loan industry is self-regulating, is it not? Those guys have managed to eff the entire country and get rich doing it.

 

 

Very fortunately I have had little need for lawyers in my life. The limited experience that I have had has been mixed. Very mixed. Some are definitely very good and have been helpful getting things done correctly. Mostly I think that the entire legal system in this country is embarrassing. When my older daughter was in high school I took her to watch a court in action (circuit court or district court or something, I don't remember) as part of a school assignment. It was not uplifting. At one point a young black male defendant (well, sort of a defendant) was brought from the jail and appeared in front of the judge. No charges were read. The judge asked him why he was there. He said he didn't know. No one could find anyone who could explain why the man had been in jail or why he was in front of the judge. Maybe he had been drunk. Maybe he killed someone. Who knows? The judge told him he could go. Every so often I read that a serious criminal has been inadvertently released from custody. I don't doubt it.

[mr1303]

I vote for banks.

 

I get charged about £40 ($80) for going over my overdraft for 3 days, when it was the bank's fault. They say it is a payment review fee, made automatically by a computer...

[mycroft]

I am a reasonably paid professional (even though I do not work explicitly in my Profession, I could). However, when there was trouble in my life and I was a not-reasonably paid professional, I needed a lawyer. At the time, a reasonably-priced lawyer's hour's time for the work I needed (most of which, I am sure, was done by the para) was half-a-week's gross pay for me.

 

Of course, I needed the lawyer, *now*, to get the help I needed for the trouble to find a conclusion that might - just might (thankfully, did) - restore my ability to do my job. Luckily I had support. Luckily I didn't have to pay the medical bills for the treatment that the lawyer's help allowed me to receive, either - we aren't talking "a couple of hours" of that.

 

There are things in this world that require lawyers to have any reasonable chance of not causing a massive problem (wills and property transfers come to mind). When those necessary things' cost is a week's wages for a fulltime minimum wage worker, there's a problem with the world.

 

Was it worth a week's salary to be the person I am today? Of course it was - and more. Did I *have* a week's salary, not "to spare", but at all? No. Are there likely to be many, many others whose profit to society is being nullified because of the same issue, who don't have my luck? Hell, yes.

 

Please note that this is a problem with the world, not just with lawyers, and in particular not just with a particular lawyer. Of course, I've said for years (only half-jokingly) that the job of any politician is to ensure employment for their children, currently entering Law School, just like Daddie did for her. But then again, I know several classmates who got their B.Eng not to do Engineering, but to go MBA and work management for a heavy-Engineering company (like the Oil business), so that's not unique either.