Why Don't Lawyers Like to Read?

Question

While in college a few years back, I worked a few summers for large NY law firm. Watched them interact, accompanied to various court hearings, mostly motion dates such as motions for summary judgment; also settlement conferences, pre-trial hearings, and actual trials. Many of them committed a lot of information ttheir memories. Sometimes that tactic did not work. So they 'fudged' a lot.

..and made some crucial mistakes, simply because they did not like to read. They like to TALK.

Answer 1

Lawyers spend about 70% of their daily activity reading. So, your premise is faulty to start.

Next, less than a third of lawyers are primarily involved in litigation. Most do transactional work. So your examples of trial lawyers (litigators) is only partially applicable to the profession, in that you don't seem to be talking about private transactional attorneys, solo practitioners, corporate attorneys, public interest attorneys, or other very large segments of the profession.

As to your example, usually less than 20% of the litigator's time is spent in court. The rest is spent preparing for court and handling related issues for clients. Also, most lawyers are juggling anywhere from 5 to 15 cases at once, so the details of any given case are often fuzzy.

Yes, there are some that are arrogant or careless. And everyone will occasionally make some mistakes. It's being human. Could they take more time to re-read materials? Sometimes, but not always. There are just so many hours in the day.

{EDIT} Based on email with the asked.

Sample sets vary. It seems your experience with attorneys is very different than mine. But I still think you're over generalizing.

Answer 2

Im guessing the lawyers you worked for have people doing the reading for them because I have noticed that a lot of judges and lawyers are lazy when it comes to writing briefs, they usually hire ppl for those jobs