Quidam Stultus non Sulvit

Being a lawyer, I have probably heard a majority of the lawyer jokes out there. Most of them revolve around lawyers being greedy. (Ever heard of the law firm Dewey, Cheatham & Howe?)

Anyway, I saw an interesting writeup in Above the Law today about reasonable fees and decided to share a few things:

our ethical canon specifically prohibits such greed by imposing limits on attorney’s fees. In particularly, ABA Model Rule 1.5(a) states that “[a] lawyer shall not make an agreement for, charge or collect an unreasonable fee….”

And because reasonable is one of these amorphous terms not subject to clear delineation like “love,” “beauty” and “monogamy in a long-distance relationship,” Rule 1.5(a) goes further and lays out eight specific factors to consider in determining whether a lawyer’s fee is reasonable; such as the time and labor required, local market prices, the amount involved, the experience and ability of the lawyer, etc. And while it is true that the drafters of this rule were not clear in setting forth how many of the eight factors must be met for a lawyer’s fee to be deemed “reasonable,” at least they attempted to put some constraints on our rapacity.

In other words, the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility (I know, the rules of lawyerly ethics . . . probably seems like a contradiction in terms) prohibit lawyers from being too greedy. Of course, this is a violation of the canon of free markets, for those who take such things seriously.

This stands in stark contrast to the general rule of a free market economy, which generally presumes that any fee is reasonable so long as you can get some fool to pay it. In fact, I believe that Adam Smith said precisely those words when negotiating his publishing contract for The Wealth of Nations. Or perhaps, it was P.T. Barnum who first said it.

So, the phrase in the title? Well, I don't know many lawyers that would pass up the opportunity to say something in Latin that could easily be stated in English, but it means "some fool paid it."

If some fool would pay me $10,000 to mow his lawn, that's fine. If that same fool wanted to pay me $10,000 to handle his expungement or review a contract, I'd probably be in ethical hot water.

Just a thought.