Do fall for every scam when somebody tries to convince you to give you there money...
To be clear, I didn't intend to suggest that OP's lawyers were deliberately misleading the OP about the chances of success on appeal or about the merits of the case in general. In fact, comment 1 to
Colorado Rule of Professional Conduct 2.1 expressly provides that "[a] client is entitled to straightforward advice expressing the lawyer's
honest assessment" (emphasis added). It is improper for a lawyer to intentionally misrepresent the merits of an argument to a client. In fact, the requirement of high ethical standards is part of the common justification for the regulatory system governing lawyers. See, e.g.,
Colorado Supreme Court Rule 208(1);
People v. Morley,
725 P2d 510, 519 (CO Sup Ct 1986) (discussing the "moral standards that the public has the right to expect of a lawyer"). But see, e.g., Judge Richard A. Posner,
The Material Basis of Jurisprudence,
69 Ind L J 1, 15 (1993) (describing such requirements, at least in part, as "a series of hoops" which operate as "restrictions on competition").
In the absence of any evidence that OP's lawyers are unethical, I think we can assume that they are acting in good faith and are expressing their honest view that the case was wrongly decided by the courts. However, that good faith belief is orthogonal to the question of whether the case was
actually wrongly decided by the courts. The number of years of experience those lawyers have is also not directly relevant to whether the courts wrongly decided the case. In general, courts endeavour to "judg[e] the case rather than the parties [or their representatives]".
Schmude v. Tricam Industries,
556 F3d 624, 627 (7th Cir 2009) (Posner, J). You can't win in court simply by asserting that you have more experience than the judge or opposing counsel. In fact, the case law is filled with examples of cases where the argument of an inexperienced person -- sometimes not a licensed lawyer -- was accepted over the argument of somebody with many years of experience.
To name just one well-known recent example, in
Byers v. Commissioner,
740 F3d 668 (DC Cir 2014), the Court considered the question of the proper venue for certain tax appeals. Specifically, the issue was whether the appeals in question should be heard in the regional court of appeals where the taxpayer lived, or rather in the court of appeals for the District of Columbia. Longstanding practice suggested that the regional courts were the correct place to file the appeal. The government's lawyers, who had a large number of years of experience, also argued strenuously that the regional courts were the correct venue. However, the Court found that the DC Court was actually the correct venue. In making that decision, the Court explicitly adopted the contents of an article written by James Bamberg, who, at the time the article was written, was only a law student.
Id, at 670-71. In agreeing fully with Mr. Bamberg's argument, the Court did not even mention that he was a student, because it was totally irrelevant to the fact that he was right. Mr. Byers, who brought the article to the Court's attention, was also not a licensed lawyer.
There are a variety of reasons why I don't discuss my background on the forum, but most importantly, it doesn't matter, because in making these posts I am not acting in the capacity of a lawyer. That would be true regardless of which licences I hold. My law-related posts contain only general technical information on topics that I find interesting. My posts are similar to reference works such as a textbook or a law review article. My posts are written for a general audience, not necessarily the people who have posted in the thread; and indeed, my posts are often not even directly useful to the person who started the thread, as I tend to write about more abstract matters than the person really wanted to hear about. I also do not make the factual inquiries that would be required to give specific advice. This is also a public forum where confidential tactical discussion is not even possible. My posts are fundamentally different from what you would receive if you retained counsel for legal advice. As mentioned, my posts are more analogous to a reference work. I'm happy that some people appreciate them.