Doctors vs. Lawyers: Why Nothing is Free at Vohra Method, And How that Saves Your Money and Gives You a Better Experience

One common question students and parents ask is “Why isn’t ______________ free?”. For example, why don’t I give advice over email for free, or provide extra homework problems for free, or grade school English papers for free, etc. It’s a reasonable question, and the answer is nicely illustrated by the difference between doctors and lawyers.

Let’s start with lawyers. Suppose you have an appointment for 1 p.m. You get there a few minutes before 1. At 1, the lawyer sees you. He spends an hour with you, and at the end, you pay a high but reasonable fee.

Let’s compare that to going to the doctor. Again, suppose your appointment is at 1 p.m. You get there a few minutes before 1. Several hours later, at about 4 p.m., the doctor finally sees you. He spends maybe 90 seconds with you. At the end of that, you’re given an insanely high fee, something on par with the GDP of a small country. If you have insurance, it covers the insane fee. If not, you get a second mortgage.

That’s strange. Aren’t doctors supposed to be the nice ones, and lawyers supposed to be selfish? Why are lawyers affordable when doctors aren’t?

This comes down to a classic problem in economics, known as the “Problem of the Commons.” The commons were open grazing ground that anyone could use. The commons became overgrazed, and thus useless to anyone. In economics, we often try to figure out solutions to the problem of the commons. Modern problems of the commons include issues related to pollution, water use, air rights, healthcare, and education.

Doctors are paid through insurance. This creates a problem of the commons, where users get services without additional payment, leading to the utter dumpster fire that is every doctor’s waiting room. Lawyers are paid directly, making them relatively pleasant to work with. Interestingly, doctors who don’t take insurance are like lawyers: minimal wait times, high quality service, reasonable (albeit high) fees.

Vohra Method is run like a lawyer’s office or a non-insurance doctor’s office. My fees are high, but not insane. I can provide high quality services because my time and energy isn’t drained on the kind of free services that create a problem of the commons. That’s why you can be assured that whatever you get at Vohra Method will be excellent, not the half-baked work that overextended and overexhausted people end up providing.

If you want to see what the problem of the commons creates in education, step into any public school. I have no intention of creating anything that terrible; my goal is to provide the best education on the planet. That’s probably why you came to me in the first place: you wanted the best. To provide the best, I successfully avoid the problem of the commons.