Specifically in the USA, but feel free to share your status quo. We live in the internet age, doesn’t that cut overhead with filing and make things cheaper?
Specifically in the USA, but feel free to share your status quo. We live in the internet age, doesn’t that cut overhead with filing and make things cheaper?
In Germany, it works like this:
Everybody has to observe the laws, therefore it must be possible for everybody to go to court etc. It cannot be that you need to be rich first, before you can sue anybody.
So our first ‘level’ of courts do not require that you have a lawyer in civil cases. You do not need to write things in ‘legalese’ language (of course it makes things easier if you do), instead you can simply walk to court and say I need to sue that person for this and that. They would write it down and start proceedings.
Only court of appeals etc. require a lawyer. In criminal cases the court would provide a lawyer if required.
Lawyers cannot decide their rates freely, but need to adhere to a kind of tariff system. So, getting rich just because you are a lawyer is somewhat difficult :-)
Most of that is similar to my understanding of the US system, except the last bit. We do have public defenders (state appointed lawyers) that are provided if needed, and I think lawyers are required to do a certain number of cases as a public defender per year, or something similar (but it can be avoided somehow I can’t remember). If you’re picking your lawyer on your own, then rates can be literally anything.