Actually - lawyers have customers too, and not just the people who pay the bills. If a lawyer can successfully market her ideas to an adversary, she’s far more likely to get a case settled quickly and to her client’s advantage. Consider the case of Julie Greenberg and Hank Mishkoff. You’ll see the entire case in detail at: Taubman Sucks!
Ms. Greenberg represented (or better: mis-represented) a giant chain of shopping malls. A few years ago, she and Taubman went after Hank Mishkoff, who controlled a domain Taubman wanted for one of its malls. Her opening salvo was a classic lawyer's demand letter, very formal and threatening. Of course, most people respond to a note like that with fear and trepidation and then anger. And it spirals from there. I wonder if any law firm has ever done testing as to whether letters like that are actually effective. What if she had called first, or sent a friendly, clearly written letter that outlined mutually beneficial options for both sides? Instead, Greenberg started mean and escalated from there. Classic litigator tactics, reflecting a "my typewriter is sterner than yours" age-old tactic. Sometimes people fold in the face of this approach (but even when they do, it's expensive for both sides).
