Law School Online

[Pats20]

Lol. I would think that a person Going for Their Juris doctor would pretty much know the program format before they ponied up the $60k.

[eLearner]

You may have a personal (higher) standard for competence and you may apply that standard when you are hiring an attorney but your standard does not apply to all attorneys.  You do not have the authority to officially state that an attorney is incompetent.  Or at least, your opinion in the matter doesn't actually alter the attorney's ability to practice.

I can't speak for ss20ts, but my take wasn't about what you wrote there at all, but since you mentioned it, your view on that isn't accurate because a client's position on an Attorney--if proven to be in violation of the standards of competence set by a state/bar association--can indeed alter an Attorney's ability to practice. 

Besides that, you're overlooking a number of key points: competence is measured post-license in a number of other ways that don't necessarily have to do with the personal standard of any individual client. For instance, if an Attorney works for a firm, his/her competence will certainly be measured through the production, accuracy of production, and outcomes they produce and that will determine career trajectories, salaries, and even the possible position of keeping or losing their jobs. Plenty lawyers wash out because competence has to be proven over the course of one's career at each stage and it's always a challenge: in school, through state exams for licensing, and during the course of a career in practice post-license. Each stage has different requirements and expectations for that competence to be demonstrated.

Then there is state involvement during practice. Each state/bar association specifically processes and keeps track of infractions and disciplinary actions for Attorney's that ultimately can and does determine whether an Attorney is competent enough to continue practicing law in that given state or not. Some of these infractions may be matters of incompetence, some may stem from forms of determined misconduct which can also be the result of incompetence, and other issues can be either brought up through client complaints or the court actions of a judge.

So the point I was making is this: what constitutes competence pre-license differs post-license by nature of the differences in environment, circumstances and expectations between the two.

[Alpha]

You may have a personal (higher) standard for competence and you may apply that standard when you are hiring an attorney but your standard does not apply to all attorneys.  You do not have the authority to officially state that an attorney is incompetent.  Or at least, your opinion in the matter doesn't actually alter the attorney's ability to practice.

I can't speak for ss20ts, but my take wasn't about what you wrote there at all, but since you mentioned it, your view on that isn't accurate because a client's position on an Attorney--if proven to be in violation of the standards of competence set by a state/bar association--can indeed alter an Attorney's ability to practice.... 

The client can make a statement indicating their opinion on the attorney's competence but it isn't that statement that alters the attorney's ability to practice.  It is the subsequent investigation by the governing body (probably the state bar association) that makes the difference.  Plenty of people complain but it rarely alters anything.  Disgruntled clients could end the career of virtually every attorney on the planet if that were the case.

[eLearner]

The client can make a statement indicating their opinion on the attorney's competence but it isn't that statement that alters the attorney's ability to practice.  It is the subsequent investigation by the governing body (probably the state bar association) that makes the difference.  Plenty of people complain but it rarely alters anything.  Disgruntled clients could end the career of virtually every attorney on the planet if that were the case.

To allude to the point I made earlier, I'm speaking only of legitimate cases where the complaint is deemed valid. I think it goes without saying that there is a process... but that complaint would be the catalyst since without the complaint there would be no investigation with the possibility of finding the complaint valid in the first place.

[sanantone]

Lol. I would think that a person Going for Their Juris doctor would pretty much know the program format before they ponied up the $60k.

One would hope, but there are Ivy Plus graduates who don't know that a master's in humanities isn't worth $60k.

[Alpha]

The client can make a statement indicating their opinion on the attorney's competence but it isn't that statement that alters the attorney's ability to practice.  It is the subsequent investigation by the governing body (probably the state bar association) that makes the difference.  Plenty of people complain but it rarely alters anything.  Disgruntled clients could end the career of virtually every attorney on the planet if that were the case.

To allude to the point I made earlier, I'm speaking only of legitimate cases where the complaint is deemed valid. I think it goes without saying that there is a process... but that complaint would be the catalyst since without the complaint there would be no investigation with the possibility of finding the complaint valid in the first place.

OK, I'll continue to play.  Let's stipulate that the complaint is valid.  It is still not the complaint itself that determines the competence/incompetence of the attorney.  There is the investigation by the governing body that is an ongoing process and while the investigation is ongoing the attorney is still seen as competent to practice.  It's an "innocent until proven guilty" thing.  Even with a valid complaint the attorney can be found "not guilty" of anything.  Now, you can say that the complaint caused the investigation but the concept of causality is fairly complicated and I think it would be pretty easy to say that there are multiple causes in this scenario and someone might wonder about the necessary and sufficient aspects of this causality chain
 Causality - Wikipedia
For example, the client makes a complaint but someone at the bar association has to evaluate that complaint in order to determine if it is valid and warrants further consideration.  This determination then gets kicked upstairs to an administrator for some decision on how this situation should be handled.  Maybe it will get swept under the rug or otherwise minimized.  In that case the complaint itself does not have sufficient causality to start the investigation.  We're really having fun now, aren't we?  The fact is that for the most part I agree with you and I'm just being argumentative.  That was my original point, that these definitions (licensed v. competent in this case) can be tricky and often times the disputes that arise on this board, and elsewhere in life, come from the fact that people are using different definitions for the same term.  Or they are using different terms interchangeably when they don't really mean the same thing.

[eLearner]

The client can make a statement indicating their opinion on the attorney's competence but it isn't that statement that alters the attorney's ability to practice.  It is the subsequent investigation by the governing body (probably the state bar association) that makes the difference.  Plenty of people complain but it rarely alters anything.  Disgruntled clients could end the career of virtually every attorney on the planet if that were the case.

To allude to the point I made earlier, I'm speaking only of legitimate cases where the complaint is deemed valid. I think it goes without saying that there is a process... but that complaint would be the catalyst since without the complaint there would be no investigation with the possibility of finding the complaint valid in the first place.

OK, I'll continue to play.  Let's stipulate that the complaint is valid.  It is still not the complaint itself that determines the competence/incompetence of the attorney.  There is the investigation by the governing body that is an ongoing process and while the investigation is ongoing the attorney is still seen as competent to practice.  It's an "innocent until proven guilty" thing.  Even with a valid complaint the attorney can be found "not guilty" of anything.  Now, you can say that the complaint caused the investigation but the concept of causality is fairly complicated and I think it would be pretty easy to say that there are multiple causes in this scenario and someone might wonder about the necessary and sufficient aspects of this causality chain
 Causality - Wikipedia
For example, the client makes a complaint but someone at the bar association has to evaluate that complaint in order to determine if it is valid and warrants further consideration.  This determination then gets kicked upstairs to an administrator for some decision on how this situation should be handled.  Maybe it will get swept under the rug or otherwise minimized.  In that case the complaint itself does not have sufficient causality to start the investigation.  We're really having fun now, aren't we?  The fact is that for the most part I agree with you and I'm just being argumentative.  That was my original point, that these definitions (licensed v. competent in this case) can be tricky and often times the disputes that arise on this board, and elsewhere in life, come from the fact that people are using different definitions for the same term.  Or they are using different terms interchangeably when they don't really mean the same thing.

What I've said is not disagreeing with that point. I'm talking about a valid complaint that leads to a process that may or may not result in a determination that finds incompetence and affects that Attorney's career. Nothing I've said is stating that the valid complaint itself is the determination because, well, it obviously isn't.