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It depends on the case and how far along it is, and sometimes you need permission from the judge, but there are ethics rules governing this. I'm barred in Pennsylvania, and their rules are fairly representative:
The most common reasons are that the lawyer doesn't get paid or the client is completely nuts and overly demanding, but those two usually go hand in hand (the clients who expect the most are always the ones who don't want to pay). If there are pending actions you need permission from the court, and whether you'll get it depends on the first prong of this test, which is basically related to how far along the litigation is. If it's fairly early the court will usually grant a motion to withdraw for any reason. If the case is well-developed the court may be more reluctant, but things can always be rescheduled. If you're in the middle of a trial, forget it, unless there's some compelling reason like you're in the hospital. In criminal cases it's a bit harder because you may have a client sitting in jail who can't take a 6 month delay the way a civil plaintiff can.
As a side note, it's worth mentioning that some attorneys work on contingency (usually when representing tort plaintiffs), and the "haven't got paid" question gets a bit trickier since there's no payment until the case is resolved. This is why all attorneys working on contingency include clauses requiring the client to accept any settlement offer the attorney recommends. The lawyer has to put in his or her time and expenses up front, and doesn't want to waste it all on a client who's insulted by good offers because he's chasing some pipe-dream bonanza or wants to make a point win or lose. And if the client decides they want a new lawyer, the prior lawyer can put a lien on the case for the time and expenses already incurred. This makes it pretty much a given that the client will take the offer, because no lawyer wants to take a case whose value is already diminished by what the previous lawyer is owed, especially from a client who just turned down a reasonable offer. Some clients will still do this and the lawyer just has to eat the fees, but lawyers are used to having to eat time and costs anyway because there's nothing they can really do if they don't get paid, since the costs of enforcement are usually higher than the costs of letting sleeping dogs lie. This isn't only true for the general public; insurance companies are among the most notorious clients for not paying bills. Most have entire departments where people pore over legal bills looking for things to challenge. My current firm has recently outsourced our billing to a third party company run by someone who used to do this who looks at our bills to make sure they're worded in such a way that the insurance companies will pay them. If we really force the issue they will pay, but they'll also take their business elsewhere. We've even been told to bill as much as possible even if it seems unreasonable and unlikely to get paid since if they're going to cut something anyway we at least shouldn't sell ourselves short.
I see, thank you for the comprehensive answer! Seems sane enough to me, which exposure to the Motte makes mildly surprising given how everyone complains about the dysfunction of the American legal system haha
Most people who complain about the legal system (in general, not just here) are complaining about inaccurate stereotypes or misleading claims by advocates or the media*, and/or are ignoring the many Chesterton's Fences that have been erected in the course of hundreds of years of Anglo-American jurisprudence.
*See, eg, descriptions of the Citizens United case.
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