What do lawyers do?

To say it has nothing to do with judges is the overstep. Those who practice know that the end-state of almost all legal analysis is “what would the judge say?” and it’s laughable to think that the prototypical lawyer doesn’t actively consider how their work will be interpreted by legal authorities.

As a layperson, you saw the commentary about communication and preparedness and you thought this was an article about professional decorum and skillsets. It is not: the author saved the punchline for the end, and tied his observations about the practice of law, jurisdictional incongruities, and legal culture under the deft umbrella of legal realism and its affects on the above. How does it affect or undermine lawyers’ interpretation of the law? How do judges weigh the various influences that impact their decision making? And, all this together, what kind of legal culture is created from the variance of these actors and factors?

But hey, let’s make this fun. You list an area of law that does not interact in any way with judges or jurisprudence, and I’ll respond appropriately.

― Voltaire

Where US civil litigation (disputes) are concerned, a good lawyer looks to end the dispute before the cost of litigation approaches the value of the dispute. Once might argue the feature and bug of US tort law is the litigation becomes a third party in the case, against whom both sides must fight, hopefully finding a common enemy in its cost. If the cost is not enough to settle the dispute, you can add the unpredictability of judges and juries who on any given day can invert the obvious, wrecking a 'winnable' case.

A great lawyer, as opposed to a good one, keeps your fees down as you heads to trial against an opponent with seemingly unlimited money and appetite for litigation. They accomplish this by focusing on the core dispute and ignoring ancillary matters, often making their client (wrongly) question how committed they are to their case.

In sum, a good lawyer manages their client (always pushing internally for settlement), works to keep fees down until discovery closes, sows doubt in the other's sides confidence, establishes credibility with the Judge, and shows up meticulously prepared for trial.

As a thought exercise, imagine how hard all this is to do when you dislike your client, your managing partner is on you to increase billings, your kids need braces, and you're hoping to save a few bucks for retirement and an escape from a profession filled with bad lawyers.

Here are a couple of livestreams of high courts in india https://www.youtube.com/c/BlackGownlaw https://www.youtube.com/c/GujaratHighCourtLive/videos

you can easily find courts right now hearing cases from 20-30 years ago meaning all that time, the case has been delayed for some reason or the other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-1qOtI9zv8

here is a hearing for a person who has been incarcerated for 4 years and no charges have been filed against him. the court granted him bail but it only took the court 4 years to do so.

edit: that said, it is simply not a question of increasing the number of courts because apparently it costs milions and millions to set up a single courtroom.

things have definitely improved in the last decades as arbitration is given preference, there is things like "lok adalats" where small cases are heard in a quick succession so that case loads are reduced.