Where is the recourse when your financial advisor loses your money, your lawyer loses your case, and your surgeon loses your life? Happens all too often because there literally isn’t any recourse.
I don’t think that word “smarmy” means what you think it means, and there is no valid point about malpractice - that’s the essence of the comment. Laws are only as effective as the means of enforcing them, and in this case not everyone has equal access to the justice system.
When a human is incompetent, you can blame them or their employer. You have recourse.