>So, is this just a U.S. thing (and is it really true) or are lawyers really despised everywhere?
I don't think it is the same here in the UK.
I have told lawyer jokes and have had to convert them to "American lawyer" jokes as in:
Q: What would you call 50 American lawyers at the bottom of the sea (translated from Ocean)?
A: A start
The joke usually falls flat and is met with blank looks, in the same way that "Polish" jokes were a few years ago. We just don't think that there is anything unusual or funny about Polish people. You hardly ever hear an Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman jokes anymore, although I do move in fairly "alternative" comedy circles, so most humour is observational.
Most people here use a solicitor to help them buy a house and to write a will, that is probably the only contact they have during their life.
In Edinburgh, in my experience, the main hostility is directed at surveyers who only look at a house once but end up with three or four people paying them fees for the surveys, at £250 a time and up to ten attempts to buy a property it can be an expensive business. The lawyers on the other hand tend to only charge a small fee for abortive attempts and work harder for their money. Similarly, when I was in London my experience of estate agents was very poor, I resented paying their 2.5% share of the transaction when I did all the work, whereas the solicitor really did earn her money.
The main issue is usually litigation, especially if you are on the wrong side of a claim. We have only relatively recently had no-win-no-fee litigation but the numbers are still small as are the amounts given in compensation. Fortunately, one of the big firms "Claims Direct" has just gone into receivership, probably as a result of its over-zealous advertising campaign and reputation as an ambulance chaser - I didn't hear too much sympathy expressed in any quarter. The NHS in England has a huge backlog of claims
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1308000/1308747.stm
and is in danger of spending more on litigation than improvements to patient care, so maybe the lawyers will emerge as the baddies of the piece in the future. Who knows?
