Lawyer Bullying Tactics: Dealing with Giant Contenders Locked in Schoolyard Bully Mode
- Megan Maysie
- Jun 23, 2024
- 15 min read
Updated: Dec 10, 2025
Why do 90% of lawyers give the rest a bad name? Not ALL lawyers are bullies. But it's a pity that 90% of them seem to give the rest a bad name. Or at least, that’s how the public who share their experiences tell it. It’s this writer's experience, too.
And the paying public, often emerging from traumatic life experiences, is seeking justice. But that’s not what they get in exchange for the king’s ransom they put in.
When lawyers misuse their power, the impact is more than legal — it’s deeply human. This piece looks at how bullying in the profession harms clients, erodes trust, and why confronting it matters for healing and change.
Public Trust & Perception of Lawyers: Do 90% Give The Rest A Bad Name?
a December 2024 Gallup poll, people rated the honesty and ethical standards across 22 professions. Nurses came in at the top, with 25% rating them very high on the scale and just 2% finding their honesty and ethics "very low."
At the bottom were lobbyists, at 35% on the high end, and nobody was willing to rate them "very high." Next lowest were Members of Congress (30% very low, 1% very high). Lawyers got 13% on "very low" and 20% on "low"- a total 33% on the sleaze scale, with just 3% saying professional ethics are "Very high" and 14% a more modest "high."
Troubling that the lawmakers and lawyers- the people the public look to for justice- aren't perceived as trustworthy. Faith in the legal system is key to its functioning.
Judges scored a combined 28% on the good side, but 36% said their perceptions were not good, suggesting that litigants think they have a gauntlet to run with their representation before having a slightly better than 50/50 chance of a fair hearing.
A Pew Justice System study in 24 countries found that rule-of-law issues rank among the top half of the changes people say could help improve democracy in their country. Respondents also mention prosecuting corrupt politicians. The resounding message: Judicial/justice systems favour the powerful.
Across the Atlantic, 16% of respondents in a January 2025 YouGov / The Law Society of England and Wales survey believe the British justice system treats everyone equally, while 69% said it “does not treat everyone equally.”
Conversely, about 78 % of UK adults who used a solicitor in the past 5 years reported a "positive experience. But legal services don't come cheap anywhere in the world, and perhaps 69% couldn't afford them in the last 5 years.
But it is notable that the people with a vested interest in appearing professional- the Law Society- were in charge of the survey. This was not an independent, arms-length study, but the Brits do mostly have a reputation for honesty (except for that little colonizing-the-world-and-extracting-the-wealth thing). For now, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.
Across the research, generally, it emerged that:
People perceive lawyers as competent but morally suspect
The system’s opacity feeds suspicion
Real misconduct amplifies stereotypes
But that is the public’s perception. Still, while it may not be 90% giving the rest a bad name, there’s definitely a problem. Among the public, there's systemic cynicism. People trust or distrust individual judges or lawyers they know, but overall distrust the system as an institution.
The suggestive, somewhat provocative title of a book by Steven Wright is
"99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name."
But it could be unmet expectations. People everywhere expect justice, but they're being served with the law, which is not quite the same thing. Justice is often as elusive as the Chimera. But this article isn’t about mythology, it’s about lawyers.
Is The Law Connected To Justice?
In the article "The Justice Chimera," we discovered that while justice is worth fighting for, it is significantly diluted when codified into law. Generations of politicians and lawyers then took what we know as "the law" (as opposed to justice) and repurposed it into a complex maze designed around power plays- to cling to power that ensures the money machine keeps churning out ever-increasing legal fees.
It's possible that the traditions appealed to them, making law an attractive career choice. Or perhaps they simply don't quite grasp the architecture of injustice that pervades the industry.
But traditions of the past are often skewed. The ethos of the profession's very British, old-school tradition is demonstrated in this old video from the classic British movie Goodbye Mr. Chips. It's the kind of ethos found in the giants who practice law with integrity and honour: being brave, and strong, and true.
But it may be a pipe dream to think that all lawyers set out in their careers to be brave, strong, and true. However, we'd like to think the majority do, rather than buy into the skewed series version that may have started with shows like "Ally McBeal." Or perhaps it's that the giant egos take over and blind them later, or, in some cases, it's always been lurking.
Because to love, to live a good, meaningful life, you do need to be brave and strong and true. And be willing and able to set your ego aside. Yet it's seen as a weakness, a concept that has no place in the legal system. However, thankfully, most judiciaries maintain justice as a guiding principle. But for the public, it's a challenge to overcome the obstacles the legal industry imposes to access those judges. And, hopefully, justice.
What Is Justice?
Philosophers, thinkers, and lawyers postulate on what justice is, coming up with complex definitions that all boil down to the same thing: Fairness, ethics, treating others with respect, and being treated with respect, and the inalienable, inborn right to be treated like a decent human being. Treating people with love and kindness, as the British boys in the Mr. Chips movie sought to do.
But it's a double-edged sword. The right to justice demands the duty to uphold the same principles in your own life. It's hypocritical to put a sign up in your office announcing to the world that you are a lawyer, implying that you are committed to justice, when, in reality, dirty tricks are your pride and joy, and bullying and lies are your preferred tools of the trade.
Justice is an all-or-nothing concept; reaping its rewards without contributing to justice defeats the entire object. All lawyers do is navigate laws- not serve justice. Even bar associations and law societies require members to uphold the rule of law, rather than serve justice.
Lawyers don't dispense justice. They simply navigate laws. It's an entirely different thing.
Lawyers are people, hard though it may be to remember that sometimes. Not much different from the other 8 billion or so other complex, fragile members of the human race, with our complicated lives, carrying the joys and hurts that make up life. Often, they, too, have suffered injustice at some point. And most only live in the shadow of the giants who went before them, possibly a blow to their egos.
Yet as a group, it seems to the rest of the world, they set themselves apart, as though their particular club is somehow especially worthy and deserving of elevation and respect. Did no one ever tell them that respect is not a right, it's something earned through your actions, not your title?
What Are Lawyers Like?
Lawyers often justify cruelty as “just part of the job,” but victims experience it as psychological abuse. A global survey by the International Bar Association, the IBA Report on Bullying in the Legal Profession (2019), found that bullying in legal workplaces is “systemic, frequent, and widely underreported.” When a profession normalises aggression, ordinary people get trampled, whether it’s the staff or the public.
Lawyers themselves have something to say about bullies among their ranks. But, fortunately, much of my search for what they’re actually saying led me to lawyers who are clearly not bullies: those with an admirable level of emotional intelligence. Their opinions matter because in the just society in which we all want to live, the particular set of principles they live by and comment on, perhaps in the hope of maintaining their chosen career as a respectable one, is critical. Without principled lawyers, the law will stand in tatters, leading to life in anarchy- one that few aspire to.
Celina Rose Glitta, J.D., from NIU Law School, says many lawyers are simply miserable. Bullied early in their careers, probably by older attorneys, they became bullies themselves.
Abdullah Daniel Talikdar, Legum Magister (LLM) in air and space law and competition law, thinks that after law school, lawyers learn to become bullies to survive in a profession where everything is an adversarial contest. And some, he says, fail to "switch off" after work.
Celina may be onto something with people doggedly doing things the same way that those before them did, whether it's right or wrong. But, apologies, Abdullah, your thoughts are insightful, and I'm no ML, but would argue that it works the other way. People with a tendency to bully are drawn to a career in law (*but that doesn't mean all lawyers are bullies) because of the perception that bullying is a characteristic often admired in legal circles.
And because of the opportunities to feel superior by bullying others (feeding the ego), the bully will not only think he will have a great career that perfectly matches his need to bully others, but can also extract eye-watering amounts of money that will enable him to buy better things that feed his ego. Sounds like a win-win. Unless, of course, you're the client or other person in the wrong place at the wrong time, and greed trumps justice.
Psychological tactics some lawyers use to dominate clients
Overcomplicating explanations to create dependency
Using fear (e.g., “If you don’t do this, you’ll lose everything”)
Taking advantage of client emotional distress
Acting irritated when clients ask reasonable questions
Undermining the client’s memory, decisions, or intuition
Lawyer Bullying Tactics?
Attorney Mike, a personal injury attorney with 20 years of experience, may be among the 10% when he eloquently reminds us that not all lawyers are bullies (I wholeheartedly agree). Mike says that part of being a lawyer means dealing with a system that is adversarial by design. With skills learned through training that may be perceived as aggressive or bullying, lawyers must present their clients' cases vigorously and challenge the other side's version of events.
Personality Patterns (the human factors)
Dr. Larry Richard’s “The Lawyer Personality: The Five-Factor Model” suggests lawyer personalities skew toward traits that correlate with harshness. In his key findings, lawyers score:
• High on skepticism
• High on urgency
• Low on resilience
• Low on empathy
This combination is excellent for litigation. But terrible for interpersonal behaviour.
Training could help mitigate behaviour. Training extends to effective negotiation and mediation skills, but the media is not always an accurate representation of reality; the better lawyers are skilled at tactics like rhetoric and use less confrontational methods that don’t get much exposure, leaving the public with the perception that lawyers are bullies.
While the legal profession (if there is the remotest possibility it can still be called a profession given the proportionately low number who practice with skill and integrity) is bound to ethical standards that discourage bullying behavior, mainly requiring that they act with integrity, civility, and respect, diverse personalities, and strategies find their way to the legal profession (or industry, depending on the reader's perception). Some lawyers may adopt a more aggressive approach, while others may be more conciliatory.
Bullying is not encouraged in legal education. Professionalism, ethics, and a range of negotiation and mediation skills are integral to the practice of law. Yet the lived experience of many is that bullies dominate the legal arena; some say that at least 90% of lawyers they have encountered are bullies, dishonest, or both.
As much as the law matters, so does perception and justice. Faith in justice is a cornerstone of civilized societies. And sadly, globally, the perception is that there are far too many lawyers who are bullies, but that is not necessarily true because they are lawyers. There's a far greater likelihood that they are lawyers because they are bullies. And they are doing an injustice to themselves, their clients, and others, and society in general.
Systemic pressures that reward aggressive lawyers
Billable-hours model incentivises over-litigation
Court rules encourage adversarial escalation
Firms reward “win at all costs” behaviour
Fear of appearing “weak” in legal culture
Lack of meaningful client-feedback mechanisms
What Makes A Lawyer Bully Others?
In general terms, bullies bully because:
They want to dominate others and improve their social status.
Lacking awareness or insight, they fail to recognize their behavior as a problem.
They lack feelings of remorse.
They have low self-esteem and bully to feel better about themselves.
These personal qualities make the law a tempting career option. There is an old adage amongst lawyers:
“If the facts are on your side, pound the facts into the table; If the law is on your side, pound the law into the table; If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, pound the table.”
Pounding on the table sounds very much like what kids do when they don't get their way. When people are locked into a schoolyard mentality, it's a measure of their lack of personal development and awareness, and an indication that self-awareness and emotional intelligence are some things that may need attention.
Bob is a perceptive man, recognizing that those attorneys who have developed their skills stand head and shoulders above the rest and are highly respected by judges and other attorneys. But it seems that for most lawyers, bullying is the go-to tactic that may bring them some success from time to time, notwithstanding that they will never be perceived as one of the greats.
The underlying message is that there is a lack of skill or personal growth in the individual lawyers, who then resort to bullyboy tactics to make a living.
Lies And Other Devious Ploys Are Not A Professional Tactic, They’re a Personality Deficiency
Presenting a client's version in the best possible way is part and parcel of being a lawyer. But there's a distinct line between advocating and dishonesty. Lawyers who find themselves resorting to pounding the table rather than pounding the facts may want to take a long, hard look at their case and decide if they wish to reap the fruits of deviant behavior that could destroy a witness, an opponent, or an adversary's life. Traumatized victims who seek legal help are ending up retraumatized by the legal system, and dealing with the destruction that lies wreak.
There is nothing good about lies, whether you're a lawyer, a baker, or a candlestick maker. The short-term satisfaction of getting away with lying, or even winning a case based on lies, has no merit.
There is something very wrong with people who think it does. For a person who has the good fortune of being educated enough to understand that laws are one of the essential pillars of society, it is morally and legally reprehensible. It sucks! Or- put more eloquently:sible. It sucks! Or- put more eloquently:
"Rather fail with honour, than succeed by fraud." Sophocles
The same goes for dirty little backroom deals that some lawyers seem to pride themselves on for reasons that are incomprehensible to the rest of the world. The deals are generally tailored around the lawyers, their seniority, and their culpability (as in the case of Azazel), rather than being carefully crafted around the needs and circumstances of respective clients, and allowing them to make their own decisions on matters that will affect their lives long after the lawyers have spent their loot.
Lawyer bullying doesn’t just damage cases — it damages people. The psychological fallout can mirror other forms of power-based trauma: humiliation, helplessness, betrayal, and fear. That’s why this issue matters, even if the legal industry prefers not to talk about it.
Too many lawyers have lost the plot: Lawyers act for clients. It is the client that is central, the most important player on the stage, not the lawyer- they only play a supporting role. The decisions and strategies are for the client to decide; the lawyer is there to guide and act on the client's instructions. When you hold someone else's life in your hands, it may make you feel God-like, but lawyers have no business playing God, as they tend to do, only far less successfully than the actual Higher Power.
These lawyers, in their insecurity, also want to play judge and wheeler-dealer at the same time. The opinions and decisions of judges have legal and far-reaching consequences, which is why judges are generally subjected to rigorous training and narrow admission criteria.
The opinions of lawyers, in most circumstances, are simply opinions and decisions, carrying no more weight than that of any other person on the planet, even though they can be used to influence others, sometimes unduly. Even though the system in most countries is rigged in a paternalistic way, with juniors forced by tradition to kowtow to their seniors, the reality is that all opinions are meaningful, including those of clients.
Finding respect-able lawyers, those that can be respected, is no easy task. Finding trust-able lawyers among them is not guaranteed. Engaging a lawyer is often like a crap shoot, but with terrible odds. Too many lawyers appear to have forgotten that the practice of law revolves around clients' needs, not their wallets, and that lawyers play a central role in maintaining an egalitarian and just society.
It's a pity that the Latin term, contra bonos mores, a legal term meaning contrary to good morals- morals set by a particular society, who choose the code it wishes to live by, is not, in itself, classified as a crime in every country. Most of us want to live in a society that includes morals such as murder, dishonesty, and destruction of lives being regarded as a bad thing, with decency, kindness, and integrity being a good thing. Prison societies often set their morality in the opposite direction, and it may be no bad thing if like-minded people were to join that society.
Trust Is A Meaningful Word, But The Meaning Of Trust In Law Is Different For Different Lawyers
At its most basic level, trust means belief, faith, and freedom from suspicion or doubt. It’s the sureness of certain things that people don’t stop to think about when making decisions. And it’s arguably the thing that is most abused by lawyers, with the truth competing for the winning spot.
Facing legal woes, people will place their trust in a particular lawyer without much consideration of why they trust, hoping for the happiness a ruling in their favour will bring. It may be because a friend or acquaintance said the lawyer is trustworthy, or it's because honourable people have from time to time been members of the legal industry, setting standards of professional conduct that are certainly deserving of trust. And it's important because, without faith in the law, society would be in bad shape.
It seems to go wrong where that trust is expropriated by individual lawyer bullies who have an agenda that is as close to those who practice law with integrity as the North Pole is to Antarctica. Clients and cases are simply cash cows, a captive audience for them to do as they please, including satisfying any bullyboy urges that may arise.
More disturbingly, lawyers often manage a bank account called a trust account, so named because a great deal of trust is placed in them when other people's money lands in the account. Too many forget that it's neither their money nor a slush fund on which to draw to cover their operational or personal expenses. Abuse of trust funds is rife, being a popular charge on disciplinary proceeding rolls of professional bodies against lawyers.
Yet this doesn't appear to be a deterrent, those controlling bodies simply aren't weeding out the problems as much as they could. One must accept that if you steal, there's a good chance you lie as well. So lying may be a strategy that many use to avoid being disbarred if bullying doesn't work.
Aside from money, clients often pour out their hopes and dreams to their lawyers and trust the lawyer to guide them to reach them without extracting a small fortune that can lead to a whole new set of problems. The trust also extends to advice, where clients trust their lawyers to advise them on the best route that will serve their interests- not simply a route that will only fatten the lawyer's wallet.
Trust is a big word, with even bigger connotations. Caution should always be exercised when placing your trust in a person, even, or perhaps especially, a lawyer.
Destroying People By Cross-Examination
How many times has a junior lawyer exclaimed in sheer admiration, "You really destroyed that witness!" to counsel who has torn apart a person, rather than their evidence? Worse still, how many times did counsel smile wryly at the perceived compliment, with smug satisfaction?
What happened to playing the ball, not the player, and the fine and elegant art of dissecting evidence to serve justice? As the trolls rule the internet, the same hate pervades the courtroom. Are the ones in court a better class of haters, and if so, how have we reached the point where there is competition amongst people with hate-filled hearts?
Acting on hate is never productive and causes trauma not only to the victim but also to the perpetrator, even if it simply lies in wait on their subconscious, only to emerge at inappropriate moments. A psychopath, for example, will be unable to develop normal relationships without seeing people as prospective victims. A bully will similarly lack the benefits of a meaningful relationship (such as experiencing and returning genuine love and affection), yet that is the very thing they need.
Lawyers Are Not All Bullies
Celina Rose Glitta ends her post by saying, "All facts considered, I sincerely apologize on behalf of all attorneys who have treated clients with disrespect. This profession needs a major overhaul."
Ms Glitta, you cannot imagine how your words will help those who have survived bullying lawyers. And your words are astute. As an industry, lawyers have a lot of soul-searching to do before they can call themselves a profession again. Many lawyers are as ashamed of their association with the other 90% (or 78%, depending on your opinion) as their honor is tainted by things that are outside of their control.
Instead of cutting off the heads of the giants who went before in order to feel tall, by disrespecting their work and ethos that built the profession, lawyers could ask themselves:
So are you brave and strong and true? And do you fill the world with love your whole life through?
And those that say yes, could then stand on the shoulders of the giants as Sir Isaac Newton describes Descartes, on whose work he built, and build the law into something meaningful, not just a mechanism for extracting money.
And for the victims who turn to the legal system for justice and become victims of the system, never give up; where there's hurt, there's room for healing. And in healing, the hurt and the trauma both find their place in the puzzle that is the meaning of life.
If you can't help, at least don't hurt.
Lawyer Bullying — What People Need to Know
Lawyer bullying is far more common than most people realise — and it causes lasting emotional and financial harm.
The power imbalance between lawyers and clients makes intimidation easy and accountability rare.
Common tactics include fear-mongering, overcharging, withholding information, ego-driven posturing, and using “legal authority” to shut clients down.
Many lawyers behave this way because the industry rewards aggression, discourages empathy, and protects its own.
Clients experiencing trauma, life crises, or legal confusion are especially vulnerable to being mistreated.
The psychological impact can mirror other forms of power-based trauma: helplessness, shame, anxiety, and deep distrust.
Good lawyers do exist — they explain, guide, protect, and don’t use fear as a tool.
Calling out bullying in the profession isn’t optional: it’s a necessary step toward justice, healing, and meaningful change.
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