Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/03/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Thank you, Dante. Here's more food for thought: a decade ago the American Bar Association engaged the Peter Hart Organization to run a survey on public opinion about the legal profession. Some results were unsurprising: lawyers were way down the list of occupations. Several were startling of which this was perhaps the most: over 70% of the respondents amswered "but my lawyer is terrific." That should tell us something. The United States is without question the most litigious society in the history of the universe - or anywhere else. It was so when de Tocqueville visited and wrote about us a century-and-a-half ago. We've only gotten moreso. Lawyers are not the parties to litigation (with very rare exception when we become mere people), they are the representatives of litigants. It requires a person who believes she has a right or claim that is unanswered to start a lawsuit and, usually, a lawyer to go to war for her. Asked about the tactics of lawyers, most respondents said lawyers were much too tricky, nasty, even lying (although a trial lawyer is never a witness, simply an examiner of witnesses and introducer of evidence). But when asked what they expected of their lawyers, they uniformly wanted their lawyers to use every trick, be as deceptive and as much a shark or barracuda as necessary TO WIN THE CASE. A person injured in an ACCIDENT, a mischance, 50 years ago most often said to herself, my bad luck to be in that place at that time. Today, whether or not anyone IS AT FAULT, that person looks around and says to herself, I've been hurt, SOMEONE MUST PAY. The result is a pushing on the limits of what is actionable. But a lawyer is the agent who goes to bat for that plaintiff. That is not to say that there are no money-grubbing lawyers who stir up litigation, there are and that is a bad thing. And look at the types of matter that now comes into our courts, that not so many years ago would have been resolved without resort to the court system: just now on the morning news I heard about a 15-year-old who is suing not to have to visit a parent who is a smoker, claiming that the smell if offensive and that secon-hand smoke is dangerous to his health. Who on earth believes that something like this should have to go to court? When our justice system is already groaning with 10 times mores civil litigation than it can handle - putting aside the burden of the criiminal justice system. But lawyers in this country each year do literally millions of hours of legal work pro bono, that is without compensation (other than the very good feeling it gives) for people, clients, who cannot afford to pay their fees. There is no person other than a lawyer who can and will stand between citizens - and resident aliens ---- and even undocumented aliens - and the government when it threatens a citizen or alien. Folks, you do away with lawyers and watch what kind of a jungle a society becomes. A jungle where only the strongest survive. All those wishing to live in that society, take one step forward. Seth LaK 9 - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html