<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>SwellJoe</author><text>I had it brought to my attention recently, by a recently bar-certified attorney who has ethical qualms about it, that members of the American Bar Association and its state franchises have a monopoly on legal representation services in the US. You cannot be represented in court by someone not certified by the bar. Lawyers are the only privately licensed group that receive this level of market protection; doctors are similarly protected, but it is by a governmental entity (and one might argue that it&apos;s in even worse shape because of it).&lt;p&gt;One could very easily argue that these barriers to entry lead to pricing pressure and artificial scarcity that has no direct relationship to the &quot;current market rate&quot;. I&apos;m only recently becoming familiar with this topic, as it&apos;s one of those things that Just Is. But, the more I learn about it, the more hesitant I become to just write off high legal fees as a result of a free market. And, the more I wonder why it is that lawyers, of all people, receive such a strong defense against competition...it couldn&apos;t possibly be that the majority of politicians are also lawyers, many of whom will return to practice after holding office, could it?&lt;p&gt;Note that I&apos;m not arguing against the idea that a great attorney is deserving of high rates, merely the idea that attorneys fees represent anything like an actual free market rate.</text><parent_chain><item><author>pg</author><text>The high rates that top lawyers get paid are simply market rates.  We pay them too. Cheap lawyers are not a bargain.&lt;p&gt;Decency and propriety?  What do you even mean by that?  That you think the proper rate for legal work should be lower than the current market rate?  What basis do you have for such a claim?</text></item><item><author>cookiecaper</author><text>They did &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; earn it. Lawyers charge exorbitant prices because they can -- they have you by the balls, and you don&apos;t really have an option not to pay them -- not because their services are actually worth $100 million+. I&apos;ve admired your posts for years here on HN, but it&apos;s not just staggering to a &quot;casual observer&quot;; it&apos;s staggering to anyone with a sense of decency and propriety.</text></item><item><author>grellas</author><text>The cost bill filed by Google underscores the intensity of this case and shows that we caught only &lt;i&gt;surface glimpses&lt;/i&gt; of what surely were day-to-day firefights keeping the lawyers and their minions going round-the-clock for an intense year&apos;s worth of fighting.&lt;p&gt;A &quot;cost bill&quot; is not a bill for the attorneys&apos; fees incurred in a case. Under U.S. rules, the parties bear their own legal fees in most cases (and that is the case here).&lt;p&gt;But federal court rules do permit a prevailing party to recover from the losing party necessary costs incurred in dealing with document production and similar matters in the litigation. The out-of-pocket bill here (not including attorneys&apos; fees) for Google to filter through 97 million documents and to produce just over 3 million of them after careful assessment and screening: about $2.9 million (mostly paid to electronic discovery service providers, who surely found full-time employment in this case during this past year).&lt;p&gt;The bulk of the remaining bill for costs consists of nearly $1 million paid to expert witnesses for their assistance in helping to prepare and present Google&apos;s case.&lt;p&gt;In a case like this, Google&apos;s attorneys&apos; fees had to run at least $10 million &lt;i&gt;per month&lt;/i&gt;, at least during the intense phases of the case. I would estimate, then, that total attorneys&apos; fees in the case &lt;i&gt;easily&lt;/i&gt; exceeded $100 million and may well have done so &lt;i&gt;for Google alone&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Big Law may be in the doldrums today in general but a case like this clearly offers a big payday. The law firms here were all exemplary and undoubtedly earned it. Still, the cost is staggering to contemplate for the casual outside observer.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Google Files Bill of Costs for Oracle to Pay - $4,030,669</title><url>http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120706111715256</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>smallblacksun</author><text>&amp;#62;The high rates that top lawyers get paid are simply market rates&lt;p&gt;Market rates propped up by having the ability to restrict entry into the market controlled by other lawyers.</text><parent_chain><item><author>pg</author><text>The high rates that top lawyers get paid are simply market rates.  We pay them too. Cheap lawyers are not a bargain.&lt;p&gt;Decency and propriety?  What do you even mean by that?  That you think the proper rate for legal work should be lower than the current market rate?  What basis do you have for such a claim?</text></item><item><author>cookiecaper</author><text>They did &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; earn it. Lawyers charge exorbitant prices because they can -- they have you by the balls, and you don&apos;t really have an option not to pay them -- not because their services are actually worth $100 million+. I&apos;ve admired your posts for years here on HN, but it&apos;s not just staggering to a &quot;casual observer&quot;; it&apos;s staggering to anyone with a sense of decency and propriety.</text></item><item><author>grellas</author><text>The cost bill filed by Google underscores the intensity of this case and shows that we caught only &lt;i&gt;surface glimpses&lt;/i&gt; of what surely were day-to-day firefights keeping the lawyers and their minions going round-the-clock for an intense year&apos;s worth of fighting.&lt;p&gt;A &quot;cost bill&quot; is not a bill for the attorneys&apos; fees incurred in a case. Under U.S. rules, the parties bear their own legal fees in most cases (and that is the case here).&lt;p&gt;But federal court rules do permit a prevailing party to recover from the losing party necessary costs incurred in dealing with document production and similar matters in the litigation. The out-of-pocket bill here (not including attorneys&apos; fees) for Google to filter through 97 million documents and to produce just over 3 million of them after careful assessment and screening: about $2.9 million (mostly paid to electronic discovery service providers, who surely found full-time employment in this case during this past year).&lt;p&gt;The bulk of the remaining bill for costs consists of nearly $1 million paid to expert witnesses for their assistance in helping to prepare and present Google&apos;s case.&lt;p&gt;In a case like this, Google&apos;s attorneys&apos; fees had to run at least $10 million &lt;i&gt;per month&lt;/i&gt;, at least during the intense phases of the case. I would estimate, then, that total attorneys&apos; fees in the case &lt;i&gt;easily&lt;/i&gt; exceeded $100 million and may well have done so &lt;i&gt;for Google alone&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Big Law may be in the doldrums today in general but a case like this clearly offers a big payday. The law firms here were all exemplary and undoubtedly earned it. Still, the cost is staggering to contemplate for the casual outside observer.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Google Files Bill of Costs for Oracle to Pay - $4,030,669</title><url>http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120706111715256</url></story>