The difference is that lawyers typically charge by the hour. Software is not sold based on how long it took to create.

So, if a lawyer bills $1000 for "10 seconds of work", it smells fraudulent.

If $1000 was a flat rate, then it's similar to software: you're purchasing some IP and passing off legal liability to the lawyer. How long the lawyer spent on it doesn't matter.

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otterley 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Why would it be fraudulent if the fee agreement disclosed it?

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sa46 an hour ago | parent [-]

I understood the OP's point as follows:

The fee agreement was an hourly rate for producing a legal document. The resulting document looks like it took 10 seconds to produce. The lawyer billed $1000 worth of hours.

So, either the document was much more complex than anticipated (in which case the lawyer should have said so), or the lawyer inflated the hours.

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baq an hour ago | parent [-]

They bill with hourly granularity

	▲	crote 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		And that would be fine, if you were getting an hour of their time. If the lawyer spent 10 minutes finding the right template, 10 seconds filling it in, and then 20 minutes proofreading it, then nobody would be complaining. In reality they'll spend 1 minute grabbing a close-enough template, 10 seconds filling it in, 3 minutes billing you, and 55 minutes double-dipping by doing work for other clients.