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And John Edwards is Changing His Name to "Atticus Finch"
The Association of Trial Lawyers has a problem: People don't like trial lawyers. They have a solution: Stop calling themselves trial lawyers.
To spiff up its image, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America is considering changing its name to the American Association for Justice.
"You asked us to fight back against the attacks on the civil justice system. We are now doing that - with a national public education and communications campaign to educate the public on the value of the civil justice system and the lawyers that work in it," wrote ATLA president Ken Suggs to members last month.
Suggs said he was proud to be a trial lawyer. "But the name of our association must be about what we do, not who our members are," he wrote.
Points, at least, for not taking the sucker's way out and just plopping "Freedom" into the org's name.
|7.14.06 @ 4:41PM|#
Why are they called "trial lawyers" in the first place?
Generally the defendant has lawyers too.
"Association of Plaintiffs' Lawyers" may not have the ring they
want, though.
|7.14.06 @ 4:46PM|#
American Association for Justice?
Sounds like a bunch of fucking superheroes.
If Matt & Trey hadn't already used it, I swear they would've
tried Super Best Friends.
Die in a fire.
|7.14.06 @ 4:47PM|#
I was wondering when the poor unfortunates beaten down by the
Conservative Renaming Machine would get wise to the tactic. It's
been happening evern since anti-abortion got turned into
pro-life.
These day, if you don't like something, just rename it or change
the meaning of the term.
If the Domestic Surveilance Program can be renamed, "organic" can
now be applied to a host of things NOONE who REALLY knows would
consider organinc and "liberals" can be called "progressives", I
guess trial lawyers can be called the something else too.
|7.14.06 @ 4:52PM|#
To spiff up its image, the Association of Trial Lawyers of
America is considering changing its name to the American
Association for Justice.
That's not so bad. ...Justice League of America was already
taken.
|7.14.06 @ 4:52PM|#
I imagine they'll still donate lots of money to the continuous re-election campaign of Jay Inslee (D-WA). It's funny though, he's against any real sort of tort reform. Does that mesh?
|7.14.06 @ 4:53PM|#
American Association for Justice
Why not Association for the American Way? Then they could be AMWay,
which is far more appropriate than anything with the word "justice"
in the title.
|7.14.06 @ 4:58PM|#
I'm not a physicist. I'm an expert on the deep mysteries of the
universe.
I feel that the revised label inspires more of the awe and respect
that I so richly deserve.
|7.14.06 @ 5:03PM|#
The good news is that a bus carrying 37 members of the American
Association for Justice crashed and killed them all. The bad news
is there were
10 empty seats.
|7.14.06 @ 5:17PM|#
to educate the public on the value of the civil justice
system and the lawyers that work in it
Wouldn't the value of the civil justice system for the lawyers be
to screw everybody and to make them rich? or do I need some more
education?
|7.14.06 @ 5:19PM|#
During WWI, sauerkraut was renamed as "Liberty Cabbage." It
still tasted like crap.
I think they should call themselves The Bar
Sinister.
Kevin
Terry Michael|7.14.06 @ 5:23PM|#
I call him the Senior Windbag from Delaware, Dave. Back in 1980, when I was a delusional left liberal, I interviewed with him for his press secretary position. The interview consisted of 30 minutes of him talking about his favorite subject, him. I don't recall that he asked me a single question about me (the interviewee.) Oddly, when he was elected to the Senate in 1972, just before his 30th birthday, he arrived in Washington with a demeanor that included funny, self-deprecating humor. But, in keeping with my maxim that the only work-able term limit is 6 months of a term, he was quickly initiated into the I'm-as-important-as-god club. That this bloviating empty suit, failing at the most important ethical test of Democratic leadership by letting this outragous war go unchallenged, would have the audacity to seek the Democratic presidential nomination goes way beyond disgusting. If I get into a candid mood, I'll tell you what I really think of him.
|7.14.06 @ 5:25PM|#
There's firm where I live that bills itself as The Mad Dogs of Justice. That's pretty boss. There's this other one which runs commercials with a great catchphrase: "Turn your wreck into a check!"
Gene Berkman|7.14.06 @ 5:28PM|#
In California, the trial lawyers already changed their
designation to "Consumer Attorneys."
Of course their organization is now the "California Association of
Consumer Attorneys" abbreviated as CACA.
Terry Michael|7.14.06 @ 5:29PM|#
Sorry...LOL That Biden rant occurred in this space by accident, when I inadvertantly linked to Weigel's piece on Reason.com about Biden, from his Hit ' Run post on trial lawyers (by any other name....are still slimy.) But read Dave's piece on the Senior Windbag from Delaware!
|7.14.06 @ 5:54PM|#
Trial Lawyers Rule!!! Plaintiff's attorneys, trial lawyers etc may have a bad rap but they are truly doing the people's work. Without lawsuits people would be at the companies that have all of congress in their collective pockets. If you think living with the services of Plaintiff's lawyers is bad, wait till you see what life is like without them.
lunchstealer|7.14.06 @ 6:56PM|#
Suggs said he was proud to be a trial lawyer. "But the name
of our association must be about what we do, not who our members
are," he wrote.
"Because if it were named after who our members are," he continued,
with a conspiratorial wink, "we'd be called 'a bunch of mindless
jerks who will be first against the wall when the revolution
comes.'"*
*With respect and love to Douglas Adams.
The Wine Commonsewer|7.14.06 @ 7:07PM|#
either way, ten thousand of them at the bottom of the ocean is what they call a good start
|7.14.06 @ 8:15PM|#
Cool. Now that lawyers are gathering like superheroes, does this
mean that I get a power ring?
I can't wait until the Overlords come to Earth and show us a
perfect legal, economic, and political system. Then I can quit my
useless profession and become an engineer or something. After
spending a few years as the Green Lantern, that is.
|7.14.06 @ 9:12PM|#
Moe Syzlak: (reading aloud a jury duty notice) "You have been
invited to join the Justice Squad..."
Ditto the hooray for working on contigency. Look, these people are
so confident in your/their odds that they're willing to work for
free for a long while. If you don't like that and can afford to pay
them hourly, then do so.
|7.14.06 @ 9:28PM|#
PL: The original Green
Lantern was both a mystery man and an engineer.
As for the attorneys, the Seven Soldiers of Victory had an
alternate name that they might be willing to relinquish: The Law's
Legionaires.
Kevin
|7.14.06 @ 9:38PM|#
Uhhh, I hate to point this out, but isnt the law of torts, along with contracts, what makes capitalism workable? I mean, look at Russia where noone believes in the courts abilities to enforce contracts and there is trust in companies due to weak tort....
|7.14.06 @ 11:54PM|#
The way you come down on lawyers, I wonder what is the proper
libertarian way of resolving conflict and assessing damages when
someone, in the exercise of your freedom infringes upon you..
No matter what it is, when it is pointed out that a certain
activity can hurt bystanders your answer is "let the bystanders
sue".
And now you want to take away the lawyers..
What recourse then would thsoe affected have if first, you advice
them to sue, and then you resent the means to do it. Should they
stick pins into dolls?
|7.15.06 @ 12:21AM|#
Points granted; torts are the correct way to address many ills
in Libertopia.
However, Libertopia also presupposes a system where harrassment by
lawsuit doesn't create massive injustices.
"Loser pays" would be a good start. So would judges who threw out
frivolous lawsuits.
Abusive class action suits, nonsensical punitive damages awards and
pervasive venue shopping all make it difficult to give much credit
to the idea that tort lawyers have any interest in justice.
The legal position of lawyers enshrined in current law (written by
and for tort lawyers) also makes them fair game for oppobrium. So
long as there is a crime of "practicing law without a license," the
lawyers' motives will be suspect.
|7.15.06 @ 4:40AM|#
"The Association of Trial Lawyers has a problem: People don't
like trial lawyers."
Until they need one.
|7.15.06 @ 9:14AM|#
Torts and tort lawyers are necessary tools for a free society.
Used responsibly, they can bring about great benefit. Used
irresponsibly, they create problems.
I don't actually want to take them away completely because of
irresponsible use, anymore than I'd want to ban handguns in
response to crime or ban free speech in response to a bunch of
people standing in the streets yelling racial slurs.
But lawyers, unlike many of the other tools of a free society, are
a tool that is designed around use in a government arena (courts).
Even though lawyers do most of their work outside a courtroom
(drafting contracts, negotiating settlements, investigating and
writing patent applications, etc.) their work ultimately revolves
around the fact that disputes can and will be taken to court.
So it is appropriate to ask what the government could do on its end
to curtail abuse of the courts. We can debate the proper type of
tort reform, but I would suggest a few principles:
1) It should be easy to dismiss clearly frivolous suits, and the
dismissal should be cheap for the defendant. Whether that means
some form of loser pays or a streamlined procedure or whatever,
defendants should not be pressured to settle to avoid paying more
legal fees. If a defendant is facing several thousand dollars in
legal fees before getting to court and receiving a favorable
summary judgement, maybe it's easier to capitulate. At the very
least, it makes people more risk averse.
2) We need to get back to the notion that sometimes a buyer assumes
some risk.
Benny|7.15.06 @ 11:01AM|#
A lot of associations change their names to reflect what they
do. Trial lawyers is a pretty broad term, and not everyone is a
personal injury lawyer either. Despite the snarks of "ambulance
chasers" and yes, there have been some famous ones, such as Melvin
Bellei (spelling may be wrong)and his son, I agree with the poster
who said:
"Torts and tort lawyers are necessary tools for a free society.
Used responsibly, they can bring about great benefit. Used
irresponsibly, they create problems.
I don't actually want to take them away completely because of
irresponsible use, anymore than I'd want to ban handguns in
response to crime or ban free speech in response to a bunch of
people standing in the streets yelling racial slurs.
But lawyers, unlike many of the other tools of a free society, are
a tool that is designed around use in a government arena (courts).
Even though lawyers do most of their work outside a courtroom
(drafting contracts, negotiating settlements, investigating and
writing patent applications, etc.) their work ultimately revolves
around the fact that disputes can and will be taken to
court."
John Edwards, the person targeted in this post, and incidentally,
his son's middle name is Atticus, (so poster, just remember that
when making a snark about one of the most famous fiction characters
in a revered work) believes that lawyers need to be more
responsible about their cases. This is what he said in 2004 when
asked about tort reform:
Q: Your position on the issue of civil tort reform?
A: I am proud of my 20 years work against powerful
insurance companies and drug companies. I believe we have the best
legal system in the world, but it is not perfect and can be
improved. For example, doctors and health care providers are facing
rising malpractice premiums and are having difficulty getting
reimbursement for the services they provide. I have proposed that
we put additional responsibilities on attorneys who file
malpractice cases by requiring that they have the cases reviewed by
independent experts who determine that they are serous and
meritorious before a case can be filed and that the attorneys
certify that this has been done. If an attorney fails to meet their
obligations the attorney would be held accountable. And I would
impose a three strikes and you're out rule so that if an attorney
violated the requirement three times they would lose their right to
file such cases for a substantial period of time. Source:
http://www.issues2000.org/2004/John_Edwards_Government_Reform.htm
|7.15.06 @ 11:30AM|#
It's good to know how seriously to take libertarians' assertions that they want to replace the regulatory state with a robust civil process for redressing damage to the your physical and environmental health.
|7.15.06 @ 12:15PM|#
It should be easy to dismiss clearly frivolous
suits,
If only that were easy to make happen. The right to petition for
redress of grievances, and to access the courts to resolve
disputes, cannot, and really should not, be abridged too
lightly.
Unfortunately, at this stage in our history, we have not quite
figured out the right balance between dispatching meritless cases,
vs. preserving as fully as practicable the right of the people to
have their day in court.
|7.15.06 @ 1:11PM|#
Actually, John Edwards' son (who died in a car accident) was
Wade Atticus Edwards
You're snark is disgusting sir. Shame on you.
PS: When a pool drain sucks out your daughter's intestines, what
are you going to do? You're going to call a lawyer to help you
recover damage from the faulty company to pay for her medical bills
for life. Grow up a little.
http://www.wade.org/AboutWade.htm
http://www.wade.org/wef.htm
Benny|7.15.06 @ 3:20PM|#
Philgoblue's comments are spot on. It's like what Steve said
earlier, people may not like trial lawyers, until they need one,
and in the case of Valerie Lakey, whom Philgoblue is alluding to,
Mr. and Mrs. Lakey needed a good lawyer to get damages awarded to
take care of Valerie's medical needs, which are still pretty high
in cost. The company wouldn't not take responsibility for a
defective product. Edwards and his colleagues at Kirby and Edwards
were often the last recourse any one had--and Edwards used facts to
prove his cases, which is why he was very successful.
Edwards' 2nd son, Jack, has the middle name Atticus as well.
Maybe I'll re-read "To Kill A Mockingbird" again soon.
|7.15.06 @ 5:05PM|#
independent worm-
I do see your point. That's why I mostly talk about goals for tort
reform rather than specific procedures. I know what I want, but I'm
wary of proposing any specific tinkering. I'll defer to those who
know more about the process, because I don't want to tinker very
much with really important stuff.
I just ran into an example of our litigious society: I went to the
local library for the first time. (Don't worry, I'll mail back my
secret decoder ring :) I asked the person at the desk what sort of
books were on the other floor of the building. She said that it was
just a meeting room, and that the local library system no longer
does two-level libraries for safety reasons. "Safety reasons?" I
ask. She says that if all of the staff were on one floor and
somebody got hurt or something bad happened on the other floor,
that would be a problem. I didn't push any further to find out more
or ridicule the situation, because she was busy just trying to help
me get my card and check out my books.
But not having dual-level libraries for safety reasons? Come on.
I've been to a lot of libraries, especially university libraries,
with many, many floors. Safety? Sure, something bad could always
happen anyway. I just take it as a fact of life that you could
happen to get hurt or come down with a sudden medical problem in a
place where nobody is around to help. Now, it's easy for me to
assume that risk, because I'm young and healthy. I know that
library visitors are often elderly. Hell, my grandmother goes to
the library a lot. Now, I love my grandmother and I hope she
remains healthy for a long time to come, but I also know the
realities facing a woman her age. Something could happen to her in
any number of situations, and that's just a sad reality of life. I
wish I could change it, but I can't.
In light of that, it seems silly for libraries to halve their shelf
space purely to avoid a scenario where somebody gets hurt when
nobody else is around.
I can think of two reasons why the library would do such a
thing:
1) Fear of liability (real or imagined).
2) Do-gooder sentiment by the people in charge: They aren't
actually in any danger of being sued, but they can't bear the
thought of something bad happening, so they do a dumb thing. In a
public facility, dumb responses to nanny impulses can't be ruled
out as a motive.
Either way, it's a manifestation of an attitude that we should "do
whatever it takes" to make sure that nothing bad ever happens to
anybody. That sort of attitude will lead to eager plaintiffs and
sympathetic juries. And maybe as long as society is that way,
procedural fixes to the legal system are beside the point.
Anyway, food for thought.
|7.15.06 @ 5:44PM|#
thoreau:
Address yourself to the society's attitudes toward risk.
But do not blame the messenger for the message.
You can have fear of lawsuits, or you can have government
regulation ending up the same way. As a friend of mine who was in
politics said "When the people really want something they get it."
He did not say how, as people who are bent on getting their way are
not fussy about the means.
Work to change the attittudes of society which insist that risk is
bad. Do not waste your time trying to abolish either governmetn
regulation or trial lawyers, which are simply the means to the
end.
|7.15.06 @ 5:55PM|#
Adriana-
I'm beginning to think you're right. I'm open to the possibility
that there are parts of the process that could be tweaked with
beneficial outcomes, but that is just tweaking on the margins. As
long as a lot of people regard any degree of risk as unacceptable,
it is inevitable that we will have eager plaintiffs and sympathetic
juries.
I have no idea what to do about that. Maybe gaius marius is right,
and our culture is entering its decadent final stages...
|7.15.06 @ 8:07PM|#
A different
view of the Lakey case from Walter Olson and Ted
Frank's site. To no libertarian's surprise, there was negligence by
a government operation at the root of the problem.
Kevin
|7.15.06 @ 8:16PM|#
Additional point on the Lakey case: the private club
that owned the pool with the vandalized drain settled quickly. The
county, which was found negligent for allowing the pool to open
with damaged equipment, would have been smart to settle early. If
the pool inspection had been done by a private firm, with the same
lax results, I doubt if the case would have turned out any
differently. But that assumes that the owners of, say, a "Pool
Inspection Division" of Underwriters Laboratories or equivalent
would take the same risk with the stockholders' money as the county
did with the taxpayers'.
Kevin
|7.15.06 @ 9:20PM|#
I know one woman who had to cross three state lines to find an
OB-GYN who'd handle her pregnancy because of John Edwards' famous
'channeling' lawsuit. And thousands more women across this country
have had their bellies cut open with steel blades in unnecessary
C-sections because of that suit.
As long as results like that are not rare, lawyers will be
deservedly scorned.
|7.15.06 @ 9:27PM|#
thoreau:
I am glad that finally here agrees with me on something...
One thing that I would like people here to consider when they speak
of the GOVERNMENT is that governments do not persecute in a vacuum.
Quite often they are doing someone else's dirty work. I am minded
of the comment of Henry Kamen about the Spanish Inquisition, that
it was actually a popular institution, since it tended to persecute
people who were disliked by the majority of the population..
So getting rid of the GOVERNMENT will not get rid of all that
nastiness and pettiness and ill will. People just have to do the
dirty deed themselves, and they are quite willing to do it.
(When they instituted "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", it
was to keep restitution within bounds and go no further than that.
Starry eyed idealists who dream of a world without jails nor
governmetn enforced punishment are actually opening the door to
lynching).
Or paraprhrasing, a government is only as good as the people it
governs..
Michael|7.15.06 @ 9:38PM|#
people may not like trial lawyers...
I nominate that for the understatement of the day award.
Trial Lawyers' reputations as foul critters and avaricious
parasites is earned by their deeds.
|7.15.06 @ 9:47PM|#
Lawyers do have their use, but they also in many ways deserve
much of the anger directed towards them.
Look at cases like the woman who spilled coffee on herself at
McDonald's or pretty much any lawsuit that John Banzhaf has
launched or Edwards' cerebral palsy lawsuits. We have people who
started smoking long after tobacco was known to cause cancer suing,
we have people suing fast food companies for their own obesity, and
we have parents suing alcohol companies because their dumbass kid
got drunk and crashed into a tree. These are cases that make people
hate lawyers.
We need tort laws, but we need reform too.
|7.15.06 @ 9:53PM|#
I know one woman who had to cross three state lines to find
an OB-GYN who'd handle her pregnancy because of John Edwards'
famous 'channeling' lawsuit. And thousands more women across this
country have had their bellies cut open with steel blades in
unnecessary C-sections because of that suit.
We have a GOP talking points sighting.
Oh, and... BULLSHIT.
|7.15.06 @ 11:06PM|#
So you hate lawyers, Harley.
Does it occur to you to hate the laws that makes those verdicts
possible? Or the juries who buy the arguments? Without the laws,
the lawyers would not make those arguments, and without sympathetic
juries,they would not bring those cases to trial.
To blame the lawyers for these results is like blaming the wars on
weapons makers (that was how they explained World War I)..
|7.15.06 @ 11:40PM|#
Adriana-
To be fair, the lawyers are willing participants. Just because it's
legal to chase after an ambulance doesn't mean one is obligated to
do so. Just because it is legal to sue a homeowner on behalf of a
burglar who tripped on a slippery floor doesn't mean a lawyer is
obligated to take the case.
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a lot of blame to go around
and I'm not about to let anybody off the hook. The biggest
lesson I draw from the ample amount of blame is that I'm not overly
optimistic about procedural fixes. That's not to say that I reject
any and all procedural fixes, but I'd have to hear a good case made
by knowledgeable people, and an analysis of the side effects. I
know what I want as far as outcomes, but I am well aware that a
naive effort to get those outcomes could have nasty unintended
consequences.
|7.16.06 @ 8:43AM|#
So the ATLA finds trial lawyers' reputation so bad they want to
change their name to Justice League of America?
That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
and the same applies to a skunk. You can call your organization
People for the American Way, thus implying that anybody you
disagree with is unAmerican. Or, you can call it American
Association for Justice, implying that anybody who criticizes you
is against justice.
Yet, whatever you call your organization, if your members go around
the country extorting people through the courts whose original
purpose was to protect them, they are going to despise you whatever
you call yourselves.
|7.16.06 @ 10:12AM|#
thoreau:
The arms manufacturers and merchants were also willing
participants, and quite a number of them were unsavory
people.
But they did not cause World War I. They are no more responsible
for war than vultures are responsible for the corpses they feed
on.
They may be disgustings,but they are a good preview of what
Libertopia would be like. People to take their grievances to court
whether right or wrong and lawyers eager to take them on, because
that's where the money is.
See how many libertarians are calling for tort reform. Translation
GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO SOMETHING. GOVERMENT should decide the upper
limit of damages. GOVERNMENT should decide what pleas have merit
and punish those who do.
Libertopia, with no GOVERNMENT to cap awards or determine that a
lawsuit is frivolous, and with no regulation of any activity,
except the post-facto remedy of civil suits, would be a tort
lawyer's paradise.
|7.16.06 @ 5:26PM|#
Considering that lawyers make the laws, I think they are
culpable for catch-22 messes we are find to often find ourselves
in.
Specifically:
* The inability to accept personal risk
* The ability to avoid responsibility for personal choices
* Their being consciously trained to obfuscate facts so as to avoid
any semblance of justice
* In the hated Bill O'Reilly's terms, there is nobody in power
looking out for you
Lawyers are natural to despise as their loyalties are usually based
on their wallet. While I don't want to get rid of them, I do desire
a system that keeps them at bay. There are few, if any, check and
balances.
|7.16.06 @ 6:59PM|#
Regarding:
Without the laws, the lawyers would not make those
arguments,.... - Adriana
This is a simplistic reading of the situation. Much, if not most,
of the law of torts arises from court cases and the subsequent
appeals of the resulting verdicts. Most people have a distorted
view of how much law is legislated, compared to how much
evolves. The lawyers of the ATLA stamp have been on a decades-long
project intended to rewrite the old standards regarding who can
sue, over what, and what standards of liability and evidence are
proper. From time to time state legislatures or Congress have tried
to ratchet back some of these changes (did your state pass any
legislation limiting pain and suffering awards in medical
malpractice suits, and did it survive court challenges?), but it is
an unfortunate fact that members of the bar are represented in our
legislatures well out of proportion to their percentage of the
general population, and for those representatives who aren't
lawyers there are always big campaign donations available.
Especially noxious are the shysters who win huge class action
settlements that net cash for the law firm, and near-bupkis for the
members of the class. $X-off coupons for air travel get awarded to
the class suing the airlines, which many members may never use,
while the lawyers that none but a few of them had any idea of
hiring get their bank accounts stuffed. Once flush, these
mouthpieces proceed to use Buckley v. Valeo to outspend
their opponents on their way to the Senate or the Governor's
chair.
....and without sympathetic juries,they would not bring those
cases to trial. - Adriana
The craft of picking a jury designed to be immune to logic, basic
science and statistics has advanced quite a bit too, and that's no
accident. The lawyers pay big bucks to "jury consultants" to,
essentially, rig the game. I got bounced from a jury panel in a
personal injury case because I admitted that I thought the opinions
of an M.D. would be more expert than that of an osteopath. Plainly,
the plaintiff had a pet expert O.D. who was going to claim that
whatever fender-bender the "victim" had been in had caused injuries
that osteopathy had revealed, which medicine would not verify.
Hooey! I'd probably be held in contempt if they had asked me about
the back-crackers who the O.D.s don't let into their club, the
chiropractors. But I digress.
Kevin
|7.16.06 @ 11:29PM|#
kevrob:
All those factors you cite, the creation of precedent, the
rewriting of standards, jury manipulation, etc. etc., why is it
only one side's lawyers that use them? Do the worthy defendants
hire incompetent lawyers who cannot rewrite standards, create
precedent or manipulate a jury? Or do you notice those things when
the side that you favor loses?
Or maybe those tactics only work when they agree with society's
attitudes toward certain issues. If they run counter to popular
prejudices they are of limited usefulness.
|7.16.06 @ 11:48PM|#
Adriana-
I suspect that attitudes toward risk play a big part, but there's
another factor to consider:
Neither lawyer makes any money if the plaintiff doesn't make the
first move. And the plaintiff won't make the first move if he
doesn't think he has at least some chance of winning. Even if the
plaintiff's attorney is working on one of those deals where he only
makes money if he wins, he has to have at least some chance of
success in order to make the case worth taking a risk on.
Also, it's to the civil defense lawyer's benefit for his clients to
feel threatened. As I understand it, any time a boss is "running
something by our lawyers", those lawyers are collecting a fee for
rendering their expert advice. The more threatened somebody feels,
the more likely he is to come to his lawyers and pay for their
advice on how to avoid a lawsuit.
So, given the incentives facing the defense side of the tort bar,
it makes perfect sense to me if one side has been far more
aggressive than the other in trying to get precedents set.
Of course, this is all speculation on my part. I'm not an insider.
Maybe I'm totally wrong. But it seems rather naive to wonder why
the defendants' lawyers would seek precedents that render their
future services unnecessary.
|7.17.06 @ 12:08AM|#
Along the lines of what I'm saying, what do criminal defense
attorneys think about drug legalization? Is there a groundswell of
support for it among criminal defense attorneys?
Given the number of drug arrests in this country, I'd imagine that
legalization would be very popular among their clients, and so
people who need a criminal defense lawyer wouldn't shun a lawyer
who supported legalization. And since criminal defense lawyers
aren't exactly popular, it's not like they have much of a
reputation to lose among the general public.
But let's think about it: All of those drug arrests must add up to
an awful lot of work for criminal defense attorneys. It may not be
the most profitable work, but it's surely steady work. No matter
what sort of business you're in, there's nothing like a reliable
stream of small jobs to hold you over between big jobs.
No doubt there are criminal defense lawyers who support
legalization, but I suspect that we'll never see a massive
groundswell of pro-legalization activity among the criminal defense
bar. The incentives simply aren't there.
|7.17.06 @ 9:18AM|#
thoreau:
You said
"But it seems rather naive to wonder why the defendants' lawyers
would seek precedents that render their future services
unnecessary."
Kind of the Kim Hubbard's advice "Never ask a barber if you need a
haircut."
That would start a consideration that self-interest has limited
usefulness when it comes to having a livable community.
(I suspect that many libertarians see self-interests as dewy eyed
nature enthusiasts see nature: i.e. they forget that mosquittoes,
ticks, burrowing worms, scabies, etc. etc. etc. are all part of
Nature and its wisdom)
|7.17.06 @ 10:37AM|#
Adriana-
Exactly. I don't want to assume that the litigious nature of our
society is all because of a conspiracy by the lawyers who represent
defendants in tort cases. But it wouldn't shock me in the least if
they have been less than ardent in trying to set precedents that
render their future services unnecessary. And it wouldn't shock me
in the least if some of them encourage their clients to worry about
lawsuits. "You know, I can think of lots of ways that your business
could get sued. You want me to review your employee handbook? In
fact, maybe I should examine your product catalog too. You wouldn't
believe some of the things that other clients have been sued over.
Don't worry, I'll cut you a good deal on the hourly rate..."
I don't know for sure that it happens, but I offer it as
speculation. Maybe somebody in the know can tell me if I'm barking
up the wrong tree?
|7.17.06 @ 11:36AM|#
thoreau:
Of course the lawyers want to get more work, not less
You know the old joke? "In this town there was one lawyer and he
barely survived, another lawyer moved in, and both got rich."
Kind of gives you pause when some committed libertarians say "why
bring regulation? if people are adversely affected they can sue"?
They seem to have this strange view of human nature that only
reasonable people will seek redress this way, for real harm
done.
I suspect that libertarianism is the equivalent of nature purists
"If we did not have so many chemicals we'd be a lot healthier".
Substitute goverment actions for chemicals and you have the
mindset.
No wonder libertarians dislike Greens so much, since they are their
mirror image.
|7.17.06 @ 11:54AM|#
Adriana, I just want to say that you are a genuinely interesting
contributor on this forum. I don't always agree with you, but you
mix it up. When you dissent you usually have an interesting
argument, and I cannot recall any time that you've gotten
insulting, engaged in purity pissing contests, or done something
just to prove that you know more than the rest of us.
Please don't go away.
|7.17.06 @ 1:12PM|#
The craft of picking a jury designed to be immune to logic,
basic science and statistics has advanced quite a bit too, and
that's no accident. The lawyers pay big bucks to "jury consultants"
to, essentially, rig the game.
Depends on who you believe. The "jury consultants" are certainly
doing a good job of promoting this belief, to justify their
astronomical hourly rates. Jury consultants are, in my estimation,
nothing more than snake oil salesmen.
As in every other walk of life, there are folks who buy the snake
oil. Lawyers are not immune to this, and they buy it plenty.
And without really wanting to be snarky, it doesn't take ANY effort
to pick a jury full of people who don't grasp logic, understand
science, or understand statistics. That's about 90% of the
population you just described.
What people see, and don't like, about the legal system seems to me
to pretty much mirror what they see and don't like about society,
or the human race, in general. (To echo a comment made by someone,
possibly Adriana, above).
|7.17.06 @ 2:51PM|#
iw:
I dunno if what the consultants are selling works any better than
what an experienced litigator would end up with by a
seat-of-his-pants voir dire, but somebody thinks it works,
or they wouldn't be doing the business they do.
Adriana:
I'm sure the defense lawyers use the same tools as the ATLA types,
but as thoreau points out, the escalation usually starts out on the
plaintiff's side. Frex, in the past 50 years many types of activity
that didn't used to be actionable have become so, completely
independent of any changes in legislation. A good example would be
"sexual harassment", which was a creative application of
anti-discrimination law. It took a good many attempts by the
plaintiff's bar to get a judge to allow the first of such claims to
even get a hearing. This is a process issue. Noting that one didn't
use to be able to sue over such behavior isn't to say that it
shouldn't be curbed. The question becomes, would it be better to
handle this as a criminal, rather than a civil matter (as x-degree
sexual assault and/or extortion, perhaps.) A hundred years ago,
dirty talk "with a lady present" might have gotten one thrashed, or
hauled in for public obscenity. The sexual harrassment decisions
have, in an odd way, reinstituted a Victorian ethic as a follow-on
to the relaxation of such standards by both the move to freer
speech and sexual liberation of the second half of the 20th
century. Should we have reached this new consensus via court
decisions, or would it have been better to have our elected
representatives hash things out?
Some of the changes in legal theory come out of the law schools,
most (in)famously the marxian "Critical Legal Studies" movement,
that intended to use lawyering as a tool of class warfare. I don't
keep up with this stuff the way I used to when I was a polisci
student, but my gut instinct is that if you want to know what
people will be arguing about as outrages of the legal system in
5-10 years, go see what the profs and the law review staffs are
dreaming up now.
Kevin
|10.31.06 @ 10:15PM|#
If more lawyers were like Atticus Finch, there would be less problems in this country to begin with. Alas, idyllic fictional characters are rarely mirrored in the real world. So many politicians and lawyers are crooks at heart, and changing the name is a sly con, to make the US believe that they support something that they don't without the right amount of $ being involved.
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