This case was more about the coffee being way too hot and causing third degree burns when spilled. The jury found McDonald’s 80% responsible because it should not serve what amounts to hot lava to customers.
double post
That’s a good point; it’s not really the lawyers but the system itself that I’m getting at here. I have the belief that the importance of information of that sort should supercede attorney/client privilege or codes of ethics. But I also believe that should only be in the direst of cases, i.e. murder, not property crime/vice cases, etc. I don’t consider that and defendants getting good and fair legal representation to be mutually exclusive.
In my (admittedly limited) medicolegal experience, they usually offer a settlement in these sorts of cases, rather than going to trial. Now, they may end up at trial anyway, since the plaintiff can reject the proposed settlement.
In response to An Arky (whose name I only just understood… jeez I am dumb).
I can understand that point of view, but not agree with it. Even though confidentiality sometimes produces sucky results, the system wouldn’t work with exceptions to it.
What gets to me is that too often people blame individual lawyers for faults in the legal system. If I think the offside rule sucks, it is FIFA’s fault, not the referee of the game, let alone the players for playing the offside trap.
A couple of points.
First, as a general rule, people don’t have an obligation to report things to the police. Obstruction is usually something more active than that. So mere knowledge of possible criminal activity is not normally obstruction. (Of course, these statements are heavily qualified, because there are laws that put reporting requirements on particular individuals in particular cases, so I’m just mentioning this to respond to your general inquiry.)
Second, lawyers aren’t the only ones with professional obligations to keep secrets. One of the other professions that has that professional obligation is the clergy, especially those clergy in denominations that have a tradition of personal confession. The priest who hears a confession, even a confession of murder, is bound by his professional and religious codes of ethics to keep that inviolable - and that privilege is normally recognised by the law, so that a priest can’t be forced to testify about the confession.
Then there’s police - they have the informant privilege. If a person goes to the police and gives them information about specific criminal activity, on the condition that the police keep their identity confidential, then the police have a duty to keep that a secret. Again, this is a privilege recognised by law.
And journalists, of course. They have a similar professional obligation with respect to confidential sources.
I’m not saying that all of these professional obligations of confidentiality are identical, but it’s not the case that only lawyers have such obligations under their code of professional conduct.
One area where I think there is a potential ethical problem involving lawyers is that those who make their living by practice of the law perhaps should not be legislating.
I agree, Burton. It is also a clear conflict of interest to have doctors setting the required standards for doctors. Medical standards should be set by laymen.
How do they know? Can a doctor just look at a patient and say, “Oops - I see a sponge inside you there. My bad.” and cut a check?
No, the natural reaction of any individual is to say “I’m sure I didn’t do that…” and to require proof that they’ve screwed up - especially if they’re being asked to pay out a large sum of money.
And even if there is a sponge in a patient, has that patient had any other surgeries, by other doctors? sometimes an object can remain in a person for some time, even years, before it starts to have an effect.
And who was responsible for the closing procedures? Sometimes it’s the specialist who performs surgery, but others are responsible for the actual closing up.
And was the hospital liable in any way, either in training of its staff or in the protocols it had set up for that type of surgery?
And even if there is a sponge left behind, what effect has it had on the patient? What is a fair sum of money to pay in compensation, taking into account all of the personal factors of the patient? Should the doctor just pay whatever the patient asks for? Or should the doctor say, “I may be willing to admit liability, but I need a lot more information on the consequences it’s had for you, before I can agree on a fair amount of compensation.”
None of these are easy issues, and that’s what the litigation process is for. The litigation process is designed to weed out all but the most difficult cases before they get to trial.
The whole point of pre-trial discovery of documents and examination of the parties, under oath, is to help both sides fully understand the facts and to encourage them either to settle claims that have merit, or to abandon those that don’t have proper basis, either in law or in fact. The usual stat that I’ve seen is that only about 5% of all actions that are started actually end in a full trial and a decision by the court. The rest are either settled or abandoned along the way.
Unless you can put forward a better way to determine contested issues of fact and law on the spot, I think we need a lengthy litigation process to ensure fair decisions - and that means a professional group with an expertise in making sure that process works.
I don’t agree on the premise.
I just wonder how many who would take lawyers (or any other profession subject to an ethical code) have ever read the applicable ethics code(s), let alone learned what it means.
I would postulate the amount is almost too small to measure.
Right - because if I make a mistake on a contract involving sums of money, that’s way worse than a bridge falling down or a patient dying of malpractice. :rolleyes:
And course, law schools at universities are fully under the control of lawyers. Tuition fees are set by lawyers, not by the university. The cost of education doesn’t depend on how much buildings cost and professors and administrative people get paid, nor on how much it costs to maintain a well-stocked teaching library. Nor does it depend on how much money the government, elected by the people, gives to the universities and law schools as basic funding.
Nope, it’s the lawyers who have just jacked up the price of university tuition.
And of course, lawyers have complete control over the cost of the office space they rent, the cost of their research tools, the cost of administrative staff, the cost of carrying out the average piece of litigation, and the average market salary of lawyers. Yup, it’s all the lawyers in charge, all day, every day.
Every time I think about it, I get a tingle of my power. 
I would recommend you open your eyes and ears, and look at what has happened during any moderately high-profile rape case. I was not trying to imply that the defense attorney gets up in court and calls the victim a slut. There are plenty of other ways of getting that across, including media leaks, etc.
No, I expect lawyers to try the facts of the case. The crux of this disagreement here is why people hate lawyers. You equate “dialing it back” to focusing on the issue at hand- guilt or innocence.
Lawyers on the other side who often do not have the ability, resources, or desire to fight for a just outcome. You can play coy all you want, but most lawyers I know are not stupid, so they generally who is guilty or innocent. Surely, you don’t limit your acceptance of knowledge to what you’ve personally witnessed or been told? More importantly, lawyers don’t ask because they don’t want to know. It’s immaterial to them, which highlights the problem people have with them.
It has nothing to with bad or good for a doctor. Doctors are not lawyers, so your analogy ultimately fails. However, there are circumstances where a doctor should dial it back. I don’t expect doctors to perform ACL reconstructions on sedentary elderly people. I don’t expect them to prescribe a dozen medications to anyone who comes in with vague flu-like symptoms. I expect them to not give out antibiotics like candy. I also expect them to actually try to diagnose the patient, and not just go about trial and error like House. All of these things may constitute “dialing it back” to some people.
I’m saying the defense should focus on whether someone is guilty, not if you can prove my guy is guilty while I try to confuse the issue. Or alternatively, offer me a deal I can sell my client so we can both go get drinks later.
Ideally, but an adversarial system works best when you have a fair fight and people that are actually adversaries. Right now, many cases fall into the Jordan playing the Knicks, and the Williams sisters playing each other in a grand slam category. Either one side has little chance to win, or both sides do a disservice to the interesting parties by colluding in many ways.
As opposed to what we have now? Honestly, how is it better that most poor/middle class people generally end up taking deals regardless of their guilt, and most rich people can get off in all but the most egregious cases?
Medical practitioners have the same ethical and legal obligations to sut up about private matters of the client/patient.
No one seems to object to that.
I am mostly with the lawyers on this thread, but anytime anyone wants to see lawyers discussing frivolity, and for very specific cites in a wide variety of areas, I recommend overlawyered.com
Just sayin…
Just curious - if it is nothing intrinsic about their education or standing or the work, why aren’t you doing it too? Is it the discrepancy between their income and yours that is the issue? How is the difference between how the market sets your pay rate and theirs really different other than in the value attached?
Not any lawyer I’m paying for. I want my lawyer to present my case, using all the tools and skills available to him, in my defense. I’m hiring an advocate for me, not someone interested in some nebulous concept of justice.
No, the defense should focus on one thing - has the Government aka THE STATE met its burden of proof before depriving a citizen of liberty. And that is not “confusing the issue.” That IS the issue because in our system of law each person before the criminal court is presumed innocent. The defendant, and his attorney, are not required to prove anything themselves, or shed light on what really occurred; the defendant and his attorney do not have to say one word. The burden rests on the State – the Government – to prove ITS case Beyond Reasonable Doubt to a jury of citizens.
So, if you’d like to change the burden of proof to put the burden on the defendent, and erase the 5th Amendment you should be careful what you ask for.
John Adams, at threat to his own life and political career, defended the English soldiers responsible for the Boston Massacre; they fired into a mob of civilians, killing 5. Taking, in pay, by the way only 18 Guineas* from the Commanding officer for 15 days work, and nothing at all from the soldiers. He convinced a jury of Boston citizens that the soldiers, acting in fear of their lives, acted reasonably under the circumstances, and they were found not guilty of the murder charge. He said of this defense that
It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life,one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.
The soldiers fired their weapons, and they killed people. Did John Adams do wrong?
*approx $1150 in year 2000 dollars, according to Colonial Williamsburg
Some thoughts:
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Kimmy_Gibbler, I have news for you. As an attorney, I can state without any fear of contradiction that my status as an attorny is reason enough for many people (a large percentage) to dislike me without knowing anything else about me. Outright hatred? No, not by all, but that’s not what is being posited. Attorneys as a group are disliked by many, and it doesn’t take being an attorney too long to figure that one out. So to you I say, stop trying to argue against this point: it’s not a winning hand.
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I doubt seriously that the various codes of ethics to which attorneys subscribe are the reason for the dislike of attorneys. The source of the concept that attorneys are unethical is rarely a display of conduct by an attorney ethical under the code that governs them, but unethical under societal norms. Rather, it’s conduct by attorneys which would be considered unethical under EITHER rubric. See, for example, the reaction to the whole situation that surrounded the Watergate scandal and Nixon administration. Indeed, for those of us who went to law school in the years relatively soon after that period, we ended up not only taking a class on ethics, but having to pass a national ethics exam.
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To my way of thinking, the usual unhappiness with lawyers comes from the combination of two facts about the initial contact most people have with an attorney:
a) They are involved in a personally stressful time in their life (criminal charge, divorce, death of someone close, work-related injury, etc.), and
b) Someone in the case, if not everyone, “loses,” that is, doesn’t get what they want.
In such a situation, when you are already feeling stressed, and are hardly in a good frame of mind, and then you don’t get what you want, or you go through a seemingly endless process, the ins and outs of which you don’t fully understand, it’s natural to get upset with the people who seem to be part and parcel to the situation: the attorneys. This isn’t helped any by the fact that some attorneys have a pretty obnoxious “bedside manner” so to speak. And even good attorneys will sometimes forget that their clients, or the general public, don’t really speak the same language.
My uncle, who is otherwise a decent man, relatively intelligent (hell, pretty damn smart, in acutality!), and understanding of many of the complexities of life, cannot talk about attorneys without vitriol dripping from every word. His reason? His years as the owners of a company, which made chemical engineering products, and his interactions with attorneys over those years. Obviously a lot of frustration there. I used to hate being around him when I worked as an attorney; it’s hard not to take the vitriol personally. :sad:
Deals are offered because the prosecution wants to save the work and expense of a trial up against a vigorous defense that holds the state to every bit of their burden of proof. If you’re going to roll over on your client and not do your job of holding the state to its burden of proof, the state has no incentive to offer you a deal you can sell your client. If you’re not going to fight for your client, why should he offer a deal?
This is just so bizarre a suggestion and so far from the history of our legal system dating back to the Magna Carta that is begs the question - are you born and raised in the US? Have you lived under other other systems? If so, what were they and how were they better, worse, or just different from what you see here now?
Alternatively, what other legal regimes do you see in the world that are closer to your ideals and why?