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Disillusioned with lawyers?
- Steph Turner
- Dec 7, 2024
- 9 min read
Updated: May 30
Are you disillusioned with lawyers? And with the legal process?
Consider the emerging alternative of need-response. It’s a new professional service in development to address needs the law cannot effectively address.
Based on anankelogy, the new social science for understanding our needs, it applies and prioritizes responses to our inflexible needs. One caring act at a time.
Which do you prefer?
Stick with established institutions and attempts to reform them, then hope for the best.
OR
Join efforts to co-create a fresh alternative for accountably responding to your needs.
When prompting ChatGPT for a “List of pain points of those disillusioned with lawyers,” it offered these 15 pain points. See how the new professional service of need-response answers each one.
Click on the listed item to go there instantly. Return to this list by clicking on any header below in green text.
After each of these items below, see how need-response can be far, far better. Click the right arrow to expand the text.
This is where you can join the effort. You are welcomed to respond to this vision, add to it, critique it, and help shape this alternative. Join us in resolving more needs to improve our overall wellness, which the law itself can never do.
According to ChatGPT, “Here are some common pain points experienced by people who feel disillusioned with lawyers.”
“Many feel that legal services are prohibitively expensive, with hourly rates and retainers creating significant financial strain for individuals and small businesses.”
Need-response starts free and always costs less than hiring a lawyer.
Need-response shifts the costs to those in positions of power when they get involved. They are to bear most of the costs as they potentially benefit the most. They will likely find the mutual support of need-response far more preferential than more cost-imposing adversarial options.
Wellness clients invest as little as the cost of a cup of coffee each week. They launch a crowdfunding campaign to build emotional and financial support. Professional need-responders do not get fully paid until the wellness client can demonstrate improved wellness outcomes.
“There's a perception that some lawyers are more focused on billing hours and earning fees than on genuinely helping their clients.”
Need-response incentivizes need-responders to prioritize their client’s wellbeing.
Need-response holds need-responders accountable to measurable wellness outcomes of all involved. While need-responders earn a flat rate to cover their bills, they only earn their full pay when clients can independently demonstrate improved outcomes. This incentivizes them to remain engaged with their clients.
“Legal language can be inaccessible and confusing, leaving clients feeling lost and unable to fully understand their own cases.”
Need-response uses easy-to-understand language to better understand needs.
Anankelogy includes a simplified version called accessible anankelogy. Need-response uses many of these easier to digest concepts and principles.
A new practice introduces new terminology, but they’re kept relatable. Anankelogy Foundation.org provides a glossary so you can quickly look up these new terms.
Moreover, the point of this fresh set of words serves not the law nor some academic standard but your specific needs. Need-response incentivizes need-responders to support clients fully understand their “case” or wellness campaign.
“Frustration with lawyers who are unresponsive or fail to keep clients informed, leading to anxiety about case progress or outcomes.”
Need-responders remain responsive and engaged with each client.
Need-response incentivizes need-responders to remain engaged with their clients. They start out complementing other professionals serving the client. But can quickly become competitive if those professionals (like lawyers, activists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, advocates) fail to be as responsive.
From this proactive perspective, any unresponsive professional is no responder at all. Need-response holds all accountable to remaining responsive to each other’s affected inflexible needs.
“Some feel that lawyers are overly combative, prioritizing “winning” at all costs rather than pursuing a fair or amicable resolution.”
Need-response accomplishes far more with its mutual support paradigm.
Need-response replaces the legalistic norm of adversarialism with the higher standard and rigorous discipline of mutual regard. Instead of trying to win at the other party’s expense, the process addresses the affected inflexible needs on all sides.
Sustainable solutions can only occur when no one has cause for pushback. No one truly “wins” until all sides are free to resolve their affected needs, and their wellness can be restored.
“A common pain point is the experience of lawyers making unrealistic promises about case outcomes to secure clients, only to fall short.”
Need-response holds need-responders accountable to clients' improved outcomes.
Need-response keeps it real. The service that need-responders provide remains transparent. Their aim is to coach the client’s team to develop their own solution to the client’s presenting problem or problems.
They spur the support team to incentivize those more powerful to coordinate with their problem-solving efforts. They own the risks involved. They challenge the legitimacy of those in power who fail to be responsive to their good faith efforts.
They aim to resolve the needs of all the cooperative. They avow to resolve their own needs with or without such cooperation. In other words, failure is not an option.
“Concerns over lawyers representing multiple interests or clients in a way that could compromise the quality of representation for any one client.”
Need-responders balance a case load they know can improve each client’s wellbeing.
Need-responders incentivized primary interest is the bottom line of clients’ wellness outcomes. If they can successfully support a dozen clients to measurably improve their outcomes, then they are free to determine for themselves how many more they can schedule to serve.
The more they can coach the service team to do more of the heavy lifting, like initiating contact with peripheral personnel shaping the outcome, then the need-responder both avoids risking burnout and shares in their successes.
“Many perceive that some lawyers may take cases primarily based on the potential financial gain, rather than based on the merits or justice of the case.”
Need-response financially rewards need-responders who improve wellness.
Need-responders earn greater financial gain and professional prestige the more they take on clients with a meritorious cause. Need-responders get rewarded by improving wellness and not merely billing clients for services rendered despite outcomes.
Moreover, need-responders stretch beyond those immediately involved to include all those with some impact on the situation. As a not-for-profit service, need-responders are less likely to fall trap to the limits of capitalism.
Their services are not merely between a payer and payee, but set to inspire investment in the client’s emerging improvement and positive impact upon others. Need-response naturally rewards those deeper benefits that money simply cannot buy.
“Clients may feel pressured to settle rather than pursue further litigation, even when they believe they deserve a better outcome.”
Need-response incentivizes all to resolve needs and not compromise their wellness.
Need-response moves beyond the win-lose paradigm of adversarial justice, or divisive politics. Improved wellness from resolved needs sets the standard.
Need-responders do not get fully paid until demonstrated improvement can be empirically measured. The closest thing to a compromise or settlement occurs when the client recognizes they’ve improved enough under the prevailing context.
If those impacting their need resists resolution, then the client can move onto those more responsive to their affected needs. If none available, those who exclusively can either find a more need-resolving path or risk being removed from ever negatively impacting the client—or anyone—ever again. Failure is not an option.
“The perception that legal help is reserved for those who can afford it, leaving low-income individuals with limited access to justice.”
Need-response exists as a nonprofit with free and low-cost services anyone can afford.
Need-response maintains itself as a nonprofit service. Anyone can start for free. A wellness campaign starts as a free trial, to allow time for to test its viability.
Initial prices of weekly sessions tend to be kept low, allowing time for the client to grow their support team. Each onboarded team member joins as either a follower for free, as a supporter for a few dollars per week, or as a patron for a few dollars more.
Clients with a viable cause and no team members can petition what’s called a “pool” to get started to cover the costs. The more attractive the cause, the greater the opportunity to attract investment in their coordinated crowdfunding campaign.
Money shall never become a barrier to resolving needs, improving wellness, and spreading love.
“Frustration with the legal system’s slow pace, which lawyers can’t always avoid but may fail to clearly explain or manage for their clients.”
Need-response alerts those in power that avoidable delays risk their legitimacy.
Need-response either complements or competes with lawyers to resolve clients’ needs. Improved wellness serves as the bottom line. If need-responders can improve wellness faster than lawyers, then they can attract more clients than lawyers.
If the legal system presents road blocks to improving wellness, then its legitimacy is to be challenged to make room for those who can create transformative change. The more attached a lawyer to the adversarial system, the more likely need-responders will compete with them.
The more open any lawyer to need-response’s more engaging alternative, the more likely need-responders will coordinate with them and complement their efforts. Justice delayed is not only justice denied, those complicit in such delay risk losing any competive advantage.
And need-responders may be happy to fill that gap as fresh opportunities to resolve more needs.
“Some clients feel that lawyers often prioritize technical legal arguments over fair or ethical considerations, which can feel frustrating or unfair.”
Need-response stays anchored in relatable principles that anyone can understand.
Need-response transcends the baked-in limits of depersonalizing legal structures.
1. It replaces legalism's hyper-individuality tendency with holism.
2. It replaces legalism's hyperrational tendency with vulnerable honest relating.
3. It replaces legalism's overgeneralizing tendency with relevant specifics.
4. It replaces legalism's alienating avoidance tendency with engagement.
5. It replaces legalism's hostile adversarialism tendency with mutual regard.
Each of these fresh concepts are kept easy for anyone to understand and apply. Instead of serving the complexities of law, need-responders serve your simple needs.
The more your needs can freely and fully resolve, the easier you can respect the needs of others. Which is what the law exists to motivate you to do.
“A common complaint is that lawyers can come across as cold or detached, making clients feel that their personal struggles aren’t fully understood or valued.”
Need-response puts your needs first.
Need-response incentivizes professional need-responders to be emotionally invested in their client’s lives, in their client’s improved outcomes. Need-responders serve clients more like counselors.
Instead of trying to get their clients to fit the demands of laws, they seek ways to fit laws to the demands of their clients’ inflexible needs. Need-response challenges the alienating impersonal demeanor of the legal professions.
Unlike typical lawyers, need-responders champion the higher “you shall love” standard, to honor the needs of other as one’s own as the grounding principle for their professional legitimacy.
“Some feel that lawyers push for litigation rather than alternative methods like mediation, which could save time, money, and emotional stress.”
Need-response uniquely replaces legal adversarialism with responsive mutuality.
Need-response upends the adversarialism built into the judicial system and politics. Need-responders lead their clients to first affirm the inflexible needs on all sides of a situation or conflict.
Instead of immediately contending with those negatively impacting the client, need-response first builds and preserves rapport with them. Instead of provoking defensiveness and shortsighted self-preservation, this alternative process keeps all sides engaged with each other.
Mutual regard over adversarialism. Win-win solutions over win-lose court or ballot battles. Improved outcomes rather than merely pain relief. Which costs far less and produces far less emotional stress.
“The variable quality of legal representation can make it difficult for clients to know if they’re receiving good counsel, leading to doubts about their lawyer’s competence.”
Need-response sets a higher standard of accountably improved wellbeing.
Need-response holds us all accountable to independently verifiable wellness improvement. Unlike the opacity of the legal process or the guarded privacy of psychotherapy, need-response remains transparent.
Need-response serves as a fully supported bottom-up process to speak truth to power. And in ways that incentivize the powerful to listen to those impacted.
The less responsive to client’s needs, the less these powerful persons or entities can earn legitimacy. The less they can brand themselves professionally.
Need-response incentivizes involved lawyers to accountably respond to clients’ needs, or risk sliding into obsolescence.
Does this speak to you? Could you benefit from what need-response potentially offers?
Thank you for your interest. Follow developments by listening to the Need-Response podcast each Wednesday, starting 30 April 2025.
Let’s build this amazing service that can more effectively serve your overlooked needs.
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