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polymathwannabe comments on Open thread, Nov. 23 - Nov. 29, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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A "person that you are not likely to see again" is not a complete description of a lawyer's client; it's missing the part where "this person pays me for my services so I need many of this person in order to make a living."
Your post reminds me of something.
If there is a huge disparity of power between the lawyer and you, Game Theory kind of "goes out the window".
Right?
The fact that I have never hired a lawyer may be a factor in my difficulty imagining a scenario where your lawyer turns into your opponent in a power struggle; I see it more likely to happen between you and your opponent's lawyer.
High-profile lawyers with a lot of power don't tend to be hired by ordinary people with little power. In any case, it is in your lawyer's interests that your interests get served. Besides, what you could lose in the worst scenario is that one lawsuit (and possibly money and/or jail time); what your lawyer has to lose in the worst scenario is reputation, future clients, and the legal ability to practice law.
Imagine the following situation: we are having a lawsuit against each other. Let's say it is already obvious for both of our lawyers which side is going to win, but it is not so obvious for us.
The lawyers have an option to do it quickly and relatively cheaply. But they also have an option to charge each of us for extra hours of work, if they tell us it is necessary. Neither option will change the outcome of the lawsuit. But it will change how much money the lawyers get from us.
In such case, it would be rational for the lawyers to cooperate with each other, against our interests.
That's been my experience, and any questions about "How much more is this going to cost me?" are not received well.
Almost every lawyer I've hired or dealt with gave me almost nothing for my money. And good luck trying to get a bad lawyer disbarred.
What I should probably do is solicit bids for a particular legal problem.
In this example the obvious culprit is the practice of charging by the hour, which I've always found a terrible idea.