Many attorneys are business people, too. Unfortunately, sometimes the business minded approach of maximizing profits may directly conflict with the attorney's effective and ethical representation of his clients.

Untimely Settlement

The compensation agreement between an attorney and his client may influence the attorney's desire to settle his client's case prematurely or in the alternative prolong litigation.  An attorney who is paid by the hour may discourage his client from settling his case even where it is in his client's best interest to settle, and conversely, an attorney who is paid on a contingency basis may feel incentivized to mislead his client into taking an undesirable settlement just so the attorney can turn a fast profit. Such behavior constitutes ineffective representation and is furthermore unethical.  Attorneys are hired to further their client's best interest. An attorney who actively furthers his own best interest instead of his client's is not performing the job he was hired to perform and is thus acting unethically.

Cheating the Opponent

Often, the adversary is the intended victim of a greedy lawyer. Lawyers motivated solely by greed may use unethical tactics such as backdating pleadings, not adequately responding to discovery requests, lying in pleadings, lying to the court or filing clearly unmeritorious motions to disadvantage their adversaries. As an officer of the court, a lawyer's honesty and integrity is held to a very high standard. A lawyer is obligated to abide by not only the laws of our land, but additionally to hold true to the oath he gave when he was admitted to the Bar. When a lawyer does not fulfill those expectations, he is defeating his purpose as a lawyer. The pursuit of money cannot justify that.

Incompetent Representation

An attorney acts inappropriately when he represents a client without having adequate knowledge of the area of law pertinent to his representation of the client. Although in many situations a lawyer can become knowledgeable (by learning the relevant law or associating in counsel) and then provide competent representation, he should not advise his client before he becomes informed adequately on the subject matter.

Overselling

A problem that has become common practice in the legal field is a lawyer's attempts to sell his services to a client by inflating the realistic value of the client's case and as trial nears suddenly telling the client the case is worth far less to lower the client's expectations of the lawyer's performance.  Attorneys must always be honest with their clients. Clients make decisions based on the information provided to them by the attorney. When an attorney misleads his client to pursue a case the client would never have pursued had he had been given an accurate assesment, the attorney has clearly acted unethically.

Unethical tactics that are used to increase the bottom line, while necessarily compromising effective advocacy, does not constitute effective business practice. A successful business is built on repeat business. Those who sacrifice their reputations by using despicable tactics will not be successful at harnessing repeat business.

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