Attorneys -- Pond Scum or Defenders of Freedom?

Great Debates
1

We’ve all heard myriad lawyer jokes. Most of us have heard Shakespeare quoted out of context about “first off kill all the lawyers” as a slam against attorneys (in reality the full context of the quote suggests attorneys are quite important to society).

So let’s settle it here (if we can).

Evidence for Pondscum:

  • They are a decidedly self-serving bunch. The very laws they craft that are important to the functioning of society also serve to separate them from that society. When buying my house I was reading some of the TONS of documents my attorney passed along for me to sign (Def. Attorney: a person who writes a 10,000 word document and calls it a brief.). I’m college educated and well read and I had a hard time muddling my way through these documents. I asked my attorney what they said and she explained them clearly and succinctly in regular english. I asked why these documents aren’t written that way in the first place and she just stared at me with a weak smile. The answer is, of course, I’d have less cause to hire her if I could read the documents on my own.

  • Lawyers are, afterall, business people. They’re out to make money. As a result they may find cases that most wouldn’t consider worthy of bringing to trial. Ok, so the good attorneys may be able to stand on the moral high ground by taking the justifiable, needful cases but they are still guilty because they do nothing to reign in their lower brethren. Anyone heard of Tort Reform? Anyone see anything approaching reform happen? Can anyone count how many attorneys are in Congress and how much money the Trial Lawyers Association gives to political groups?

  • I’m tired of attorneys using the Constitution as a pillow so they can sleep comfortably at night. I think the US Constitution is one of the finest documents ever written and I understand the need for its guarantees but c’mon. How do some attorneys manage to work HARD to get lowlife scum off the hook and back out on the streets (make the assumption here that the attorney knows the client is guilty as hell)? While it can be argued that getting them off because the police screwed up is really a protection for me works to some extent but still…it goes too far sometimes.

  • For people trained in the justice system it is odd that justice is the last thing any attorney is ever concerned about. Their only concern is for the welfare of their client. Truth and justice be damned. Certainly, attorney’s aren’t supposed to knowingly lie to the court but that doesn’t mean they can’t dance around the issue of actually lying enough to put anyone’s tongues in knots. If an attorney finds evidence that would (justifiably) trash their clients case will they stop everything and say, “Hey man…you ARE guilty…just pay your dues like a good citizen.”? Hell no, if at all possible they will bury or otherwise ignore that evidence. Justice my ass…
    Evidence for Defenders of Freedom:

  • Let’s face it. You really can’t have a decent society without a good rule of law and fair justice system to back it up. This isn’t to say the US Justice system is 100% fair and good but it could be MUCH worse. Naturally, attorneys are a BIG part of that justice system. Indeed, they are responsible for the US Constitution. Also, look to US Supreme Court decisions. While you may disagree with that court here and there I think you’d be amazed at the overall level of scholarship the justices display as well as get a profound respect for their importance in shaping our country. All attorneys at one point or another.

  • As many attorneys will point out you may think they are pond scum till you need one. At that point you’ll give thanks for their presence to pull your bacon out of the fire.

  • Sometimes big bad bully corporation/government does come along and stomp all over the little guy. Who’s going to crusade for you? An attorney (and not always for compensation).

Man…this is getting long. The winner?

While the downside list is longer the upside list is stacked with powerful stuff (pillars of society and all that). I’ll call it a draw for now (how’s that for equivocation?). Seriously, I’m split in my own head on this. I know attorneys are necessary. I know some of them are really good (people, citizens, whatever) and some are true scumwads. I also know they refuse to seriously police themselves in any way that might impact their business so there you have it. I’m split (hence this reason for this post).

So, anyone wanna try their hand?

2

shrug Lawyers are human, they have good ones, bad ones and the majority of them are somewhere in the middle.

Try this sometime, take your favorite lawyer joke and change lawyer to some minority group and change the setting to be appropriate for the minority and see how funny it is. You get the idea.

3

Well, Jeff I think you probably know where I stand on this issue but let’s look at the facts shall we? First your argument for being pond scum was alot longer than the defenders of freedom argument so what does that tell ya?

Secondly as far as needing one you wouldn’t need one if there weren’t any now would we?

4

I hear what you’re saying and I agree. Certainly we can and do regularly run into lowlife auto mechanics, computer technicians, doctors, etc…

However, none of those groups have quite the impact that attorneys do on my life. The financial cost to society is huge. My insurance rates are higher because of them. They cost me money when closing on my house. They may put me in jail for the rest of my life or they may save me from jail.

Certainly some of the cost to society is necessary. The cost to me when closing on my house is likewise necessary if I wish to avoid future hassles. And certainly sometimes people are extremely justified in suing and collecting money. If an insurance company pays out then so be it.

I believe we live in a litigious society and believe that is becoming a problem. So lucrative was being an attorney that when my friend was in law school in the early 90’s there were more law students then there were actual attorneys already in existence (in the US). If we assumed they all graduated and passed the Bar exam (which I know is false…just for the sake of argument) then the number of attorneys more than doubled in the 1990’s.

All these attorneys need work. In Chicago they advertise on TV. Stuff like, “Do you get headaches? Stiff muscles? Nausea? If so then you might work in an unclean environment that is a hazard to your health. Call XXXX for a free consultation. You may be entitled to compensation.” (This example is made up but it is not far at all from the truth…I did see one similar to this that shocked me in its vagueness).

So this is the reason for my post. It’s fun to poke fun at attorneys. They make an easy target. The question is how justified are people for taking pot shots at them. It’d be nice down the road if a lawyer claims that they’ve had enough of the lawyer jokes and I can justifiably say, “You deserve it.” (Or, conversly, “You’re right…these jokes really are unfair to you and your profession.”)

5

  1. It is not correct that we need lawyers only because we have them. We need lawyers because the resources of each individual are not infinite and because we have chosen the rule of law rather than the exercise of force as a means to decide issues of contention.

  2. This need would be minimal if our society were extremely simple and the manners in which we could interact were extremely limited. That is not the case.

  3. The need for lawyers would also be minimized if, as a society, we had a lesser appreciation for the rights of the individual. It is only our choices as a society that guarantee counsel for an accused man or the rights of any citizen to seek redress through the courts.

  4. Please name for me the other professions in our society that place as much priority on the donation of work and/or work product to those who cannot pay as a matter of professional ethic. Then we can call those folks names as well.

  5. Before adding up the “cost to society” for the practices of lawyers, please remember to parcel out the responsibility of judges and juries. I, for one, am happy that anybody, crackpot or not, has the right to make his case. I would much prefer it, though, if those who were empowered to judge the issue were more adept at recognizing the odor of BS from across the room.

6

Woulden’t it be better if we just made the people who accused or defended could only represent themselves. It would probably stop frivilous lawsuits and would remove a big cost to society.

7

Lawyers are a byproduct of having Law.

I believe very firmly in Law. I’m not a big fan of anarchy, nor of despotism.

Our legal system might stand reworking. Revocation? Puh-leeze.

To call all lawyers scum is the height of ignorance and is undeserving of a response.

8

I vote for pond scum.

Actually, for this post I vote for the pond scum designation. It just so happens that, come November, I will also be voting for pond scum since most of the candidates are lawyers.

9

This is not a flame. I think you have laid out some important conceptions (and mis-conceptions) fairly well, and you deserve a measured response.

Well, here’s the thing. I have about half a dozen attorneys whom I employ for various business and personal reasons. Not one of them has ever crafted a law. Legislators craft laws. Now of course, lawyers are over-represented in legislatures, but each and every one of them won an election in which almost all of the voters were non-lawyers. The current Senate has doctors, bug exterminators, and who knows who else? Heck, my state assemblyman was a muni-bond salesman. If electorates choose to find that lawyers are best suited to crafting laws, I don’t really have a problem with that.

Well, no. The answer is that your attorney explained what will happen in almost all cases. The complicated gobbledygook explains what the contract specifies in all foreseeable circumstances. It also defines exactly (as opposed to casually) the rights and obligations of each party to the contract. Trust me, if contracts say stupid stuff like “party of the first part,” it’s because some guy weaseled out of a contract that did not say that. To be fair, many common documents can be simplified. Your credit card agreement, for example is much more simple that it was 10 years ago, despite being a fairly complicated revolving loan arrangement. The legislation that both allowed and forced the credit card companies to simplify the language? It came from those lawyer-dominated legislatures. Your mutual fund prospectus is moving in that direction, too. Actually, I’m often amazed at the ability of contract lawyers to put complex concepts in fairly simple terms.

If a case "isn’t worthy of bringing to trial, a contingency lawyer will make no money from it. An hourly lawyer will, but it is his client’s money. If the client is willing to put up good American bucks to pursue his case, and if a court accepts it, who are we to say otherwise? That said, I agree that some form of tort reform is appropriate at this time.

Not to me. I’m a real adherent to the “better 10,000 guilty men go free” school of thought. The State has enormous power. It is the protection of laws and lawyers that prevents the only check on the State’s power from being violence.

This is just not fair at all, and reflects, I think, a misunderstanding of the adversarial process. A lawyer may not lie or suffer his client to lie in court. Ever. But the big picture here is that the system is designed to provide justice. Likewise, the economy is designed to produce competition. My lawyer is under substantially more obligation to assist the system’s goals than I am to aid my competitor in the name of competition, but yes, his role is to assist me in my search for justice. The other party’s lawyer has the same job.

10

<minor hijack>

The U.S. legal system is based on an “adversarial” approach to justice…It’s my understanding (please correct any potential ignorance here…) that some other countries have other kinds of systems that don’t automatically become adversarial.

Does this kind of system contribute to the kind of atmosphere that may surround some parts of our judicial system…is there a better systme than the adversarial system? I think I can guess an advantage of an adversarial system…probably tends to promote a more vigorous defense

How do non-adversarial systems work…do they try to build consensus…?

11

manhatten, great job analyzing the OP. I guess I’ll take care of some of the other pond scummers, then.

Bill, Bill, Bill. I believe that Jeff cleared up that first point in the OP, no? “While the downside list is longer the upside list is stacked with powerful stuff (pillars of society and all that).”

As for the second point, I think I’ll address it at the same time as Asmodean, who said:

“Woulden’t it be better if we just made the people who accused or defended could only represent themselves. It would probably stop frivilous lawsuits and would remove a big cost to society.”

Neither of thos points are true. Bill, let’s imagine for a second that ther weren’t any lawyers. As a result, people would take it upon themselves to represent themselves in court. But, most people don’t have enough knowledge of the legal system to know all the twists and turns that are there. But, you say, they would learn.
Well, considering that not everybody has the time to learn all that stuff, probably only a few would. Then, they would realize that they could help out the other people who didn’t know the stuff out, for a price. And voila, you have lawyers again. To quote andros: “Lawyers a biproduct of law.”

As for letting people represent themselves in court? As I just stated, there’s just too much in law for everybody to know enough to represent themselves well in court. Therefore, lawyers are needed, as “guides” of a sort, helping people through all the mumbo-jumbo that is, in fact, necessary.

Also, in no way are all lawyers money-grubbing sharks who advertise on tv. Once again, we have a case of the minority also being the loudest. Since the crappy lawyers are out there in the media the most, people only see them, and therefore assume all lawyers are bad. Also, bad lawyer stories are generally the only ones that get told. When was the last time you heard a joke about a good lawyer?

12

Jeff_42 said:

This is a comment that could only be made by a truly ignorant person. As a matter of fact, law is one of the few professions that does successfully police itself. The states don’t regulate the practice of law - the Bars do. Ever heard of lawyers’ rules of ethics? Guess what - we periodically get together and try to decide what rules we should work under to protect our clients and promote justice. These rules impede our ability to make money - they prohibit representation of certain clients, regulate our relationships with those clients, and require certain behavior with respect to the courts and our opponents. Please check your facts the next time you throw out a snide comment in support of your pre-conceived notions.

Also, in addition to what manhattan so brilliantly said, I noticed a fallacy in most of your argument: you assume that all lawyers are either criminal defense attorneys or smarmy personal injury lawyers. Just because these bad apples are featured in the media, you take for granted that they represent all lawyers, and disregard the vast majority who are simply business people at worst, and who at best conduct themselves with more honor, integrity, and compassion than most other workers in any field.

13

Aeryn, you wrote “Ever hear of lawyers rules of ethics?” I will ask you: Ever hear of a Bar severely disciplining an attorney? Back when I was intimate with the legal profession (Attorney girl friend) during the late 80’s in California, the Calif Bar had NO disciplinary actions. That seems to indicate that everything any attorney was doing was okay with the rest of them.

If that is the case, take your well deserved dislike from society. Or sue us.

14

Mipsman, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Every year, my state (Illinois) disciplines attorneys. The disciplinary agency’s report (which I read every year) lists disbarments, supensions, censures and cases where an attorney surrenders his license in the face of a charge. I personally have reported someone to my state’s disciplinary agency. He no longer has a license to practice law. In fact, it is a disciplinary violation not to report a fellow attorney when you witness an ethical violation. Some years ago, an Illinois lawyer was suspended merely because he failed to comply with this rule.

I wish other professions regulated themselves like lawyers so. Instead, cops, doctors and others are known for their codes of silence. With rare exceptions, members of these professions who report or testify against their fellows are ostracized. Not attorneys.

As for your amazing California claim, I suspect you misunderstood what your girlfriend said. Do you have a cite?

15

Spiritus Mundi, manhattan, Jester, AerynSun, and Random have covered it all very well, so I don’t have to. But let me emphasize one thing.

Spiritus Mundi said:

Absolutely right. For the lawyer-bashers here–do your professions have anyrequirement for pro bonowork?

16

Why don’t lawyers get together and try to change all these negative opinions that you get from watching “The Practice” or “Law and Order”?

I mean, wouldn’t it do the legal profession good in the long run to have a better educated potential pool of clients?

And, for the Defense League here… Address the “Ambulance Chasers” that you see on TV advertising to help you sue for everything from legimate needs to “Sick Buildings”. Why are they allowed on TV? (I’ve seen the disclaimers) And isn’t their behavior in some way responsible for all the hatred of lawyers? If you have a portion of your group working to muddy up the court system because Joe Doe has a cold and thinks his building gave it to him so he’s suing… I mean, it isn’t doing the profession any good.

Oh, and Manny… let me ask you a quick question.

So if one of those 10k commits a crime against my family, can I bill you for it? I don’t think you’re really saying that you’d let 10k felons and the like back out cause they “might” be innocent, but I would like some clairfication.

17

Normally, I try to refrain from the whole ‘piling on’ part of the posting experience. The previous posters have covered just about all the areas upon which I would have commented so I really don’t have any new knowledge to impart.

But over the last few days, in several different threads, I’ve seen a surprising amount of venom unleashed towards the profession and I’m at somewhat of a loss to explain it. Granted, there are people who have been hurt by what they construe to be the actions of lawyers. But why are the lawyers the ones being blamed in the first place? If your ex took you to the cleaners when you were divorced, it wasn’t the lawyers idea to divorce you in the first place. The lawyer was simply doing his or her job. To represent the client to the utmost of their ability. I realize that it’s an emotionally charged situation and the there is probably anger to spare, but it doesn’t make much sense to me.

We’ve all heard of cases where the suit was brought and won, even though there was, in our estimation, no foundation to it. My personal hobby-horse is the breast implant controversy. But that is hardly and indictment of all or even most lawyers. Hell, it can’t even be stretched to cover many of what seems to be the most dispised group, the dreaded Personal Injury Lawyer.

Personally, if I ever find myself staring at the results of the gross negligence of a company or corporation, I’m going to want to get the same guys who managed to take out Dow Corning. I may not agree with the basis of their suits, but by damn, I want someone that good to work for me.

18

Damn right it is. When you hire a lawyer to represent you in court, are you going to want to hire someone who is going to want to find a reasonable compromise, or are you going to want to hire a vigorous advocate for your position, whether it is defending you in a personal injury suit, sueing the guy who injured you when his car rear ended you, defending you for the crime you’ve been charged with (whether you’re guilty or not), or your attempt to collect on a bill that one of your customers/clients didn’t pay?

The legal system here is an adversarial system. You don’t hire a lawyer to acheive justice, you hire a lawyer to achieve your goal, which when litigation is involved, is to win your case in court.

You say you’re college educated. You no doubt have specialized training in your field, whatever it may be, and if I should need something done in your field I could hire you to perform whatever tasks your specialized training makes you more qualified to perform those tasks than myself.

I’m a lawyer. I’ve spent years of my life and thousands of dollars getting my Juris Doctor degree and passing the bar exam so I can represent people like you in court, explain all those documents to you at your real estate closing, draft contracts so people and corporations can do business, and numerous other things necessary for living in a country with over over 400 years of common law legal history, going back to English common law.

Do I intend to charge you money for what I do? Durn right I do. And I’m going to charge you whatever the market will bear. Am I going to give you the best possible representation I can? Durn right I am. Am I a “hired gun”? Maybe I am. But you’re the one who’s hiring.

If you don’t like lawyers, feel free to represent yourself. You can do that. At a trial, at a real estate closing, hey, draft your own contracts. I suppose if you had appendicitis you could perform surgery on yourself too, if you don’t like doctors. Just don’t be surprised when the other party uses a lawyer to clean your clock. And don’t bitch after the fact about the damn lawyers because you were too stupid to hire a specialist to get the job done right.

19

I must admit that I am often impressed at the high quality of our judicial system (though I must also admit that overnight delivery also impresses the shit out of me, so maybe I’m easily impressed) in theory. I have a fairly concise legal dictionary on my bookshelf, and a couple legal research sites bookmarked on my computer, all for my own enjoyment. Note that I have less than zzero intention of ever practicing law.

In practice, I find the legal system still impressive, but obviously flawed. I still admire the vast majority of lawyers who work hard, keep rigid ethics rules, and have the remarkable ability to construct logical arguments in favor of either side of a propostion. Even if I had the ability and inclination to do the work of a lawyer, I cannot imagine that I could maintain my sanity doing so.

I suppose that is at the heart of many people’s resentment of lawyers. They fail to believe that the benefits of the adversarial system outweigh the costs of having to vigorously defend even the guilty. Even as strongly as I believe in this system, the constant moral dilemmas would probably break me like a little twig. Contrary to most people’s reaction, I see that as weakness on my part, rather moral bankruptcy on the lawyers’.

So, specifically excluding the handful of lawyers who truly are rotten individuals (and I will concede that the legal practice is probably attractive to such types), I give a hearty salute and thank you for keeping us a free and honest society.

20

A court of law is a method of determining the truth. By definition the truth is not known before the case goes to trial. As was pointed out earlier, it is neither the defense attorney’s nor the prosecutor’s job to determine the defendant’s guilt or innocence. They have a very specific role to play in the entire process: They are two people specifically charged with assuming the defendant’s innocence or guilt, respectively, and arguing the facts from those perspectives.

Every defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Every defendant who is aquitted was done so because a jury found that given the evidence, they could not determine his guilt within a reasonable doubt. Not because some “bad apple” defense attorney worked “too hard” to get a “scumbag” back on the street. Likewise, every time someone is awarded a big personal injury it is because under the laws enacted by the representatives you voted for, a jury (not lawyers) found that the preponderance of evidence showed that the defendant caused actual harm to the plaintiff, and the judgement was necessary to correct the harm and possibly punish the defendant to prevent others from causing similar harm.

Every time a defendant is aquitted, the defense attorney has protected your rights, your freedoms, by ensuring that in each and every case, regardless of superficial impressions, the State must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt before it may punish you. People do get falsely accused. People sometimes are, despite the best efforts of the system, wrongly convicted. You might very well be next, in which case you will want the baddest apple of the bunch, someone who will vigorously defend you with every legal technique.

People do get injured, and the responsible party does often try to escape, evade or simply ignore their responsibility. If you are hit by a car, rendered unable to work, suffer constant pain, and the driver’s insurance company just wants to give you a thousand bucks, you will damn straight go for the guy who will call them on the carpet, ask them the tough questions, present your case in the best light possible, and get you the compensation you deserve.

These people are not bad apples. They are not pond scum. They are the people, directly or indirectly, that will keep your ass out of jail, that will make sure that if someone injures you they will not be able to avoid responsibility. It’s a damn tough job, physically, mentally, emotionally and sometimes morally. I have nothing but respect the people who choose to enter this bruising and challenging career. Especially the “bad apples.”