In a weird sense, given that the marketeering apparatus of the internet feeds the belief that lawyers are all whores walking Google Boulevard in hot pants begging for the opportunity to always be closing, you can’t blame Suzanne Hooper. Sure, I didn’t do it. I don’t offer free consultations, even though the marketeers say I do. Not directed personally at me, of course, but spreading stupidity wherever they go, because it’s all they have to offer.
So when Suzanne Hooper called “Jane,” she assumed she was entitled.
The subject of the review (call her “Jane”) doesn’t advertise free consultations. Suzanne called her wanting free legal advice. Jane didn’t give the free advice. Suzanne did not like that. Suzanne punished Jane.
Jane didn’t give Suzanne an answer (or at least didn’t give Suzanne the answer she wanted to hear); Topek and Topek spent 45 minutes on the phone with Suzanne, who never intended to hire them, and gave her the answer she wanted to hear.
Jane, a pseudonym because Mark Bennett won’t give the name up, now has a review on the Googles.
There is nothing special about Suzanne’s belief that she is entitled. And most of you, particularly the young and hungry, see her sense of entitlement as your path to survival. You want the call, at least the opportunity to try to sell Suzanne, even if you realize that she doesn’t want to pay a lawyer, but merely to glom some free advice.
The difference here isn’t that a lawyer, who doesn’t offer free consultations because she doesn’t give away her advice for free or seek out the entitled nutjobs who search the internet for lawyers whose tushies look cute in hot pants. failed Suzanne. The difference here is that the entitled nutjob, Suzanne Hooper, was so infuriated at not getting the free advice to which she was entitled that she went through the effort of leaving a scathing review.
Mind you, the review, through non-entitled eyes, isn’t a condemnation of Jane, but of Hooper. She didn’t get her “free consultation”? That’s just awful for her. In some other universe.
Even if you’re the nice lawyer who gives freeloaders what they believe they’re entitled to, the day will come when you fail to be there to take the call, fail to tell them what they want to hear, fail to satisfy their demands for “just one more hour of your time question.” Then boom, your carefully crafted internet persona gets nuked by your personal Suzanne Hooper.
We can’t stop the marketeers from feeding people’s entitlement. They have nothing else to sell, and have a constant stream of conferences to bolster their pretense about how to sell lawyers. We can’t stop the lawyers who buy snake oil from the marketeers, as they’re desperate and hungry, and will happily get down on their knees, and pay for the pleasure, in the vain hope of making enough money so they don’t have to borrow from mommy again to pay the rent.
So what can be done with the Suzanne Hoopers, so irate that lawyers aren’t thrilled to fulfill her demands that she will smear them on the internet? Probably nothing. This is the future you’ve built for yourselves, you’ve accepted as being the new normal. Hell, the ABA Journal gives away skateboards to Legal Rebels for sticking their virtual head up their digital anus.
Unless, of course, you get your clients through client referrals, lawyer referrals, based upon excellent work, so that your real clients, the ones who want your services and understand that there is a fee to be paid, don’t find you on the internet.
When I get a call from someone who tells me they found me on the internet and want to have a consultation, I tell them there is a consultation fee of $1500 ($2500 if they’re particularly annoying) to be paid up front. A few have actually paid, but most don’t.* If a referral comes from a client or lawyer, there is no fee. That’s because the former group reflects people I don’t want to represent, people who are seeking their entitled free answers to their questions, or interviewing 20 lawyers like the marketeers tell them to do.
The latter group reflects people I may want to represent, who are serious and come to me because of what I do. For me, Hooper’s review on the internet would mean nothing beyond one entitled nutjob spewing her ire.
I reject your future of law. If this is what you want to spend your career dealing with, then you get what you deserve, Suzanne Hooper.
*The irony is that before I began doing this, I would set aside time for a consultation and most never showed. People value your time as you do.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
1) This is an intriguing idea. Where do you draw the line? I mean, I’m guessing you’ll say, “Yes, I defend murder cases” without a consultation fee. That pretty much it? And is the fee applicable to representation costs or is it just to get them to that point?
2) Tell me more about this free skateboard. I like free stuff.
You would guess wrong. Don’t guess. It’s not a good look.
Starting to think that asking a lawyer for free legal advice is like showing a rash to a doctor at a dinner party. Rude and a little gross.
You can ask. The doc can say “come see me in my office and take care of the copay.” No lawyer minds you asking, but don’t be outraged if the response is, “I’m not in the free legal Q&A biz.”
But people will be outraged, because they’re entitled.
How’s this for a sales pitch:
Prospective client: I was arrested on a MJ charge (that would almost be 100% guranteed to result only in Probation – info that any CD atty would know – but not the naive arrestee)
Very well-known, wealthy Criminal Defense lawyer: “I just want to keep you out of the slammer”. He said, while gazing out the window at the new Jaguar parked outside.
Very well-known, wealthy criminal defense lawyers don’t do marijuana cases. Was there a point to your insane fantasy comment?
The lawyer referenced IS wealthy and the facts happened as I said. His initials are D.B. – you want his name?
Sorry you didn’t understand the point I was making: that many lawyers are hustlers, just like the silly YouTube video you posted
Unless D.B. was involved in my post (which he isn’t), why would I want his name? I’m sorry you’re butthurt about lawyers, but when you write insanely idiotic things, people will treat you like an insane idiot. That’s how insane idiocy works. But then, you probably know all about lawyers, which will make you the king of reddit. Quick. Go. Fly like the wind.
And feel free to hate me too. Bye, Ted.
Cool vid, bro. Having read Bennett’s post yesterday, I was wondering whether you could add value. You did.
(The vid is ancient in Internet years, the only ones that matter. Someone should update it.)
I’ve used that vid quite a few times over the years. They could really use a Millennial version, where the unemployed baby lawyer hires a virtual marketeer to do the streetwalking for him after he learns that the cool logo that cost him his last dime didn’t make him rich.
You’ve read my mind.
That’s frightening.
He did it for free, too! I’m so confused.
“given that the marketeering apparatus of the internet feeds the belief that lawyers are all whores walking Google Boulevard in hot pants begging for the opportunity to always be closing”
. This is at once one of the funniest things you’ve every written and the …um, hottest. i’m seeing you in hot pants and can’t wait to get home from the airport lounge. There ‘s no real privacy here.
As to the post,
The reality that you told my friend you wouldn’t answer his “quick question” made him think you’re an asshole. Thankfully, he doesn’t post reviews of professionals with whom he never actually deals, although he’s a millenial. His review of not actually meeting with you and your not handling his case would have destroyed all your good Angie’s List reviews, not to mention you BBB rating.
Of course I’m an asshole. Anyone who doesn’t give entitled people what they believe they deserve is an asshole. It’s my cross to bear. On the bright side, I’m not on Angie’s List.
Well now I know what not to say if I’m ever in NY again and might require your services. But the fact is I did find you on the internet thanks to a link from Ken White at Popehat a couple of years ago. I have been entertained and learned quite a bit as well as being chastened for an inopportune or off topic comment
Ken who?
You and your ilk with all of your logic and reasoning and obscure referencing will be undone by the intertubes. It’s worked out well with brain surgeons and pilots so why are you lot so difficult? How hard can all this lawyering stuff be anyway?
Ilk? That’s hate speech.
And what of your repeated use of “he” in one of today’s posts, A Bold, But Unemployed, Academic? It’s hard to believe, to be sure, but sometimes I do connect the dots between various posts of yous.
I adhere to the rules of standard written English. Because I can.