A lawyer's action can benefit or harm himself; it is fairly trivial to determine which in any particular case. However a lawyers actions can also benefit or harm lawyers as a group.
A single lawyer initiating and losing lots of lawsuits is not really going to benefit himself, but he is doing his part to drive demand for lawyers even higher. If lawyers were microbes, we could expect to see this sort of behavior become more prevalent so long as it provided a benefit to lawyers with similar traits greater than the damage done to the individual lawyer.
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I think this is a great insight.
A lawyer's action can benefit or harm himself; it is fairly trivial to determine which in any particular case. However a lawyers actions can also benefit or harm lawyers as a group.
A single lawyer initiating and losing lots of lawsuits is not really going to benefit himself, but he is doing his part to drive demand for lawyers even higher. If lawyers were microbes, we could expect to see this sort of behavior become more prevalent so long as it provided a benefit to lawyers with similar traits greater than the damage done to the individual lawyer.