Get your ignorant ass in here, JohnBckWLD

The BBQ Pit
1

You, sir, are a festering sack of shit:

htp://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=137740

I do pro bono work for people who need legal representation and who could not otherwise afford those services. I do it without hope of even a penny of monetary reward, and at the considerable expense to myself in the form of time, energy, and occasional sleepless nights. I know many, many lawyers who do exactly the same thing, and at exactly the same cost to themselves and their families.

It is deeply insulting to be told–by a person who obviously has no fucking clue whatsoever–that pro bono is just some disingenuous, money-making scam. I don’t practice in any of the fields where I’ve provided free assistance, and I’m sure as fuck not profiting off it in any manner whatsoever.

I don’t do family law, but four children in foster care now have excellent parents because I handled their adoptions. I don’t do landlord-tenant law, but several low-income families now have safe places to live because I handled disputes on their behalf. On my current pro bono representation, I have spent literally hundreds of hours for a person who could not possibly be at a greater disadvantage, legally speaking. Once again, I don’t make a penny in any area even remotely related to that field of law, but I do it anyway, despite actual nightmares over the subject matter of the represtation.

I do all that simply because I can, you asshole. I do it because I enjoy it, and because it’s often fun, and because it’s interesting. As a matter of fact, I strongly suspect that my dedication to pro bono work is going to end up costing me many thousands of dollars at the end of this year (other lawyers will know what I’m talking about).

So, to sum up: Go to hell, you ignorant, wretched vermin.

2

Fixed your link pro bono.

:smiley:

3

It is a fact of life that there are lousy people out there, minty green. And they occur in all vocations, all occupations, all faiths and all walks of life. I am sure that there are avaricious and unscrupulous attorneys, just as there are many who (like you) do pro bono work because it is the right thing to do for people who would otherwise not be able to afford to have adequate representation.

Most of us realize this. Don’t let the turkeys get you down.

4

Is JBW the dipshit who was ranting about the fact that public libraries have VHS tapes?

5

I might end up working for the public defenders office or legal aid, and thus doing work for people who can’t afford it, who are put into that situation by the legal system…but I’ll be getting paid, just not by the clients. I can certainly see how very few people would want to do absolutely free work, no compensation at all, out of the goodness of their hearts. For one, there is the tens of thousands (in my case, $70,000) new lawyers owe in student loans. It could be 20 years before I really had the ability to devote hours of my time to work for free. So I can understand that perhaps some people look for any benefit they can find in pro bono work. Most lawyers aren’t the big-firm types who can afford to just do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Most lawyers have to struggle paying the bills for the first couple decades of their career, just like everyone else. We’re not like those precious annointed-ones in the medical industry who can just charge whatever they want because insurance will be footing the bill.

So I wouldn’t be so quick to judge those that do pro bono work with motives other than what you consider purely altruistic as “avaricious and unscrupulous.”

6

[hijack] Hey minty why don’t you come join us at a DFW doper get together sometime? I, for one, would love to meet you in person.[/hijack]

I agree the statements JohnBckWLD made are reprehensible. I simply ignored them in my response to him, but I’m glad someone took the time to flame his dumb ass for it. Nicely done sir.

Enjoy,
Steven

7

IIRC, Minty Green is currently doing pro bono work for a prisoner facing the death penalty. IMO, donating one’s time and talents to the preservation of life is the noblest work one can do.

8

Hey minty, a thanks to you for performing pro-bono work. A lawyer did that for me in a VERY difficult time and I was so grateful. I was broke, homeless, and had been served with divorce papers. My sister had interned at this lawyers office and asked him some questions about my case, and he just said “Send her in so I can see the papers.” From then on he represented me, NO CHARGE. He said that my sister had done great work for him and that he hoped it would be one less problem for me to deal with. Wow.
I sure appreciate the generosity of people like you and him.

(PS- I “paid” my lawyer back by working on his campaign for town judge- two elections in a row.)

Zette

9

JohnBckWLD, you are extremely ignorant.

10

It’s always nice to hear an oxen gored. The volume of the bellow generally denotes the place where they were gored. minty is walking funny.

11

Actually, you can’t gore “an oxen,” but thank you for your otherwise brilliant insight.

Was I able to keep a straight face?

12

minty, I’m not sure if you need further encouragement, but some days the only things that keep me in law school are the posts by some of the resident SDMB lawyers, you prominantly among them. I hope to someday achieve the mastery displayed by the lot of you, so don’t let someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about get that far under your skin.

13

It appears the sad little twit will not be attending this roast, according to his latest response in the other thread. Like so many jerks, it seems he’s also a coward.

Love to join y’all sometime, Mtgman. I’ve met a few DFW Dopers (scotth, Zyada, and SMUSax among them), but I spend next to no time in MPSIMS and always miss the announcements. Email me next time.

gobear: I also support the death penalty, which tends to disprove his absurd assertion that we just do pro bono for an excuse to change the law. One of these days, there’ll be a thread about this experience, assuming there’s still a SDMB by then.

tom~, I can’t see your face, but mine cracked up!

Maximo, it’s a lot of fun watching posters like you develop into real live lawyers. I’ve noticed that Gadarene in particular has taken to it like a fish to water. Law isn’t for everyone, but it’s rewarding as all get out when you’re doing something you enjoy with that JD. Keep it up, and keep it fun–you’ll do fine. :slight_smile:

14

You’re a fucking moron, idiot boy.

Well, I am sure that it has come across that I am not the greatest fan of the legal profession in general, although I try to stay far away from the irrational ranting and posturing that infects most complaints about the legal profession.

Let me say that having volunteered my time in the past, when I lived in NY, to assist pro bono lawyers with translations, that I have nothing but respect for those who donate their time. Above all otherwise very busy attorneys to indigent clients, in the case where I volunteered my time to translate, assisting indident asylees facing deportation to horrible regimes by the ignorant fucks in the INS. Let me add that none of attys volunteered in their main area of practice, or even where they had tangential interest.

Surely there are some abuses here and there, as in any matter, however Johnblahblah has amply demonstrated himself to be an unthinking moron on more than one occasion. Here is another.

15

exCUSE ME? (Please read this whilst lookingdownyour nose, the rest of you…thank you very much.)

And what, pray tell, do YOU do to help the people who have no funds to hire a lawyer when they need one? What do YOU do to help the downtrodden? The people without funds who need legal representation? The people who have no help in YOUR chosen profession, whatever it is?

I await elucidation…

16

Consider it done.

17

I may be mistaken, but does working for the public defenders office count as pro bono? I know it’s no cost to the client, but I understood the term pro bono to mean “without [monetary] recompense” as opposed to “without [monetary] recompense from the client”. Am I wrong in this understanding? If I’m right, then I can’t really see a motivation for doing pro bono work, OTHER THAN purely altruistic motives(meaning advertising is a cheaper way of getting new clients and charitable donations are a better way to get out of tax obligations). If I’m wrong then I apologize and I’ll adjust my understanding of the term.

Enjoy,
Steven

18

Pro bono indeed means without payment, but in common usage it overlaps to a certain extent with the notions of public service service. One thing’s for sure–if RexDart goes to the public defender’s office or legal aid, his clients will certainly not be paying clients.

I certainly would not want to be paying off school loans an PD’s salary. Ouch.

19

You are correct in your understanding of pro bono. RexDart’s post seemed to indicate that while he, too, would be helping the underpriveleged, Minty had gone an extra step by doing it free and that given the burden of debt most lawyers begin with, people doing pro bono should be saluted.

(The medico crack was misplaced and ill-informed, but the rest of the post was done in a spirit of approbation.)

20

Minty Green:

This is indeed an unfortunate slander against you. I can’t see why one would attack you based on your good works when there are so many legitimate ways to take a cheap shot against you. :wink:

A man such as yourself needs to find a better class of enemies, and not waste your time on such ignorant fools.