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shannon_aI hate lawyers.
No apologies at all. Yes, there are honest lawyers out there, crusading lawyers, and lawyers who are really just trying to help, but they're greatly in the minority. Most lawyers are out there just to make the big bucks, and most of them will manipulate the judicial system in any way they can to win a case.
I know, because I planned to go into pre-law out of High School, and actually spent a year studying PoliSci at Berkeley and immersing myself in pre-legal culture--before my scruples (and a solid case of boredom at meaningless sociopolitical ramblings) caught up with me.
Twice recently I've read articles damning sections of the legal community.
A couple of weeks ago I read a story in The Bay Area Guardian about drunk-driver lawyers in the Bay Area. Since we started get tough on drunks who hop in their cars and murder people while intoxicated, a whole cottage industry has emerged consisting of people who defend drunks. And, sure, there's a need to defend people innocently accused and there's a need to defend people who are having their constitutional rights violated. But the lawyers interviewed in this article gloated about how they got their clients off on technicalities. One talked about how he got one client off scott free because the officer had mis-spoke and said that the defendent had stood on his right foot, rather than his left. That's dishonest chicanery not justice.
A couple of days ago I was reading another article, this one about a notable personal accident attorney in the Bay Area called "The People's Lawyer". (This article courtesy of The East Bay Express.) It talked about the huge number of clients he had who were mad with him for cutting sweet deals with the insurance companies, apparently in lieu of working in his client's best interest. I found it particularly notable that this "People's" lawyer had never been in a court room on a case--except when being sued by his own clients. It read to me a lot like someone who's in the field to put as many greenbacks into his pockets as quickly as he can.
So, I don't like lawyers, and I think there are enough bad ones out there to make it very clear why. And that attitude tends to be very prevelent in this country.
On the other hand that means we, as a country, are also forgetting how lawyers can be used as tools to force societal change. I've chatted a bit about DirecTv and class action law suits over on some of the DSL newsgroups, and got almost universal recrimination.
Given law suits against McDonald's for hot coffee and against the Orioles for banning antagonistic fans, and so many more, it's understandable that people have a knee-jerk reaction against any anti-corporate lawsuit ... but on the other hand that means we're playing right into the corporations' hands.
If we refuse to use lawyers as tools of justice -- rather than just financial gain -- we give up one of our primary methods for reclaiming our country from Enron, Disney, Microsoft, and the corporate goons that they're constantly putting into our government.
Down that road it'll only be a couple of decades before we find our water utilities being suddenly shut off, because they've been privatized and are no longer making sufficient profits. It'll only be a couple of years before we find ouselves utterly beholden to the Bill Gates of the world.
If we are going to avoid that fate we need to reclaim our courtrooms from the greedy, malicious, dishonest bunch who have taken up residence in the judiciary, who are painting the entire picture of what the legal field is, and start using courtrooms again for the purpose that they were intended when the first inklings of British common law began to emerge.
We need to start using them as tools for the underprivileged to get justice, not for the poor to get rich.
No apologies at all. Yes, there are honest lawyers out there, crusading lawyers, and lawyers who are really just trying to help, but they're greatly in the minority. Most lawyers are out there just to make the big bucks, and most of them will manipulate the judicial system in any way they can to win a case.
I know, because I planned to go into pre-law out of High School, and actually spent a year studying PoliSci at Berkeley and immersing myself in pre-legal culture--before my scruples (and a solid case of boredom at meaningless sociopolitical ramblings) caught up with me.
Twice recently I've read articles damning sections of the legal community.
A couple of weeks ago I read a story in The Bay Area Guardian about drunk-driver lawyers in the Bay Area. Since we started get tough on drunks who hop in their cars and murder people while intoxicated, a whole cottage industry has emerged consisting of people who defend drunks. And, sure, there's a need to defend people innocently accused and there's a need to defend people who are having their constitutional rights violated. But the lawyers interviewed in this article gloated about how they got their clients off on technicalities. One talked about how he got one client off scott free because the officer had mis-spoke and said that the defendent had stood on his right foot, rather than his left. That's dishonest chicanery not justice.
A couple of days ago I was reading another article, this one about a notable personal accident attorney in the Bay Area called "The People's Lawyer". (This article courtesy of The East Bay Express.) It talked about the huge number of clients he had who were mad with him for cutting sweet deals with the insurance companies, apparently in lieu of working in his client's best interest. I found it particularly notable that this "People's" lawyer had never been in a court room on a case--except when being sued by his own clients. It read to me a lot like someone who's in the field to put as many greenbacks into his pockets as quickly as he can.
So, I don't like lawyers, and I think there are enough bad ones out there to make it very clear why. And that attitude tends to be very prevelent in this country.
On the other hand that means we, as a country, are also forgetting how lawyers can be used as tools to force societal change. I've chatted a bit about DirecTv and class action law suits over on some of the DSL newsgroups, and got almost universal recrimination.
Given law suits against McDonald's for hot coffee and against the Orioles for banning antagonistic fans, and so many more, it's understandable that people have a knee-jerk reaction against any anti-corporate lawsuit ... but on the other hand that means we're playing right into the corporations' hands.
If we refuse to use lawyers as tools of justice -- rather than just financial gain -- we give up one of our primary methods for reclaiming our country from Enron, Disney, Microsoft, and the corporate goons that they're constantly putting into our government.
Down that road it'll only be a couple of decades before we find our water utilities being suddenly shut off, because they've been privatized and are no longer making sufficient profits. It'll only be a couple of years before we find ouselves utterly beholden to the Bill Gates of the world.
If we are going to avoid that fate we need to reclaim our courtrooms from the greedy, malicious, dishonest bunch who have taken up residence in the judiciary, who are painting the entire picture of what the legal field is, and start using courtrooms again for the purpose that they were intended when the first inklings of British common law began to emerge.
We need to start using them as tools for the underprivileged to get justice, not for the poor to get rich.
