Who Thinks Lawyers Are Unscrupulous Bloodsuckers?

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: tinybear I thought it was Congress who signed those bills into law and the Court which interprets them. The lawyers are just advocates and messengers. Don't shoot the messenger.

Most members of Congress are lawyers and all judges are lawyers. Both sides of a trial are lawyers and so is the judge so what's your point? Also the lawyers are regulated by their own union, the ABA.

Laws are written by lawyers, enacted into law, argued and decided by lawyers, so if they want all that power they have to take the heat for what they do, period. I'm not saying all lawyers are scum, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't know at least ONE lawyer who was.

[Zeebadee]

I think one reason that most people seem to hate lawyers is that it's becoming harder and harder to avoid dealing with them during normal everyday life. Personal experience with any of these scumbags is an effective incentive to detest these lowest-of-the-low. May they all suffer from festering boils on their ass and privates.

[tinybear]

So have you had dealings with lawyers before?

[Waychel]

I highly doubt that most of these people have.

[tinybear]

Well, I know many lawyers in America, UK, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong and they seem like very nice people to me.

[Waychel]

I fail to see where all of this hyperbole is coming from considering that it is the people who vote on bills or propositions and ultimately decide upon what becomes law.

[tinybear]

They are mostly lawyers. That's the point some people here are making.

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: tinybear So have you had dealings with lawyers before?

Yes, I have. I live in a small town and a lot of the small businesses have also had dealings with lawyers. These detestable scumbags come through from time to time and check out every small business in town to try and capitalize on the ADA rulings to extort money out of places that can't afford to hire another douche-bag POS to fight their claims of non-accessibility for persons that are "challenged" in some physical way. These leeches do nothing more than suck money from every aspect of every business, R&D, product development, marketing, sales, service, support, all of them. While we may need some lawyers, the majority are nothing more than parasites, sucking a percentage out of every interaction that goes on in society. While other posters may write a much more intellectual post about these disgusting societal tapeworms, I like to write about them on the same level that they exist.

[Waychel]

The people who vote are mostly lawyers? Either I'm misunderstanding you or the misunderstanding here regarding the function of law in general is much larger than I originally imagined...

[Scribbler1]

I don't think anyone is actually implying ALL lawyers are scumbags, but a LOT are. For every decent lawyer there are apparently 10 Johnnie Cochrans who win cases by fooling the terminally stupid while the rest of us shake our heads and subconsciously lump them all together. This is the problem, as we don't usually see the average lawyer at work while the bastards who would say or do anything for any creep with a checkbook get the press.
It's also society's own fault as we just keep graduating unnecessary lawyers and once in the real world these guys want to earn a buck but the market is saturated and any case will do; even one the lawyer might not ordinarily take. I'm not defending these people as they should know beforehand they are entering an already bloated profession, but a lot of them DO have to scramble.

I heard once that for every engineer graduated in the U.S. there are 7 lawyers. In Japan for every lawyer there are 7 engineers. I'm not sure of the accuracy of this but it would at least appear true. I don't think comparing ours to other countries' is fair.
This is probably why lawyers get such a bad rap. There are just too many of them and our society encourages income over ethics, so it seems like a no-brainer that a lot of people would love to land a career where they can pander to wealthy criminals while a law clerk (who wants to be a lawyer HUMSELF some day) does most of the work and the lawyer just engages in the courtroom theatrics.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Waychel Addressing the first point of your right-wing drivel: 1)In order to be precise, words are frequently defined for particular purposes. Concrete is concrete, but seven bag concrete is stronger than four bag concrete. The word "income" can have many definitions. Restricting it to exclude wages would be as much of a perversion of the common sense meaning as anything. 2)The law is written by elected legislative bodies or by propositions (such as Proposition 13) which are first approved by the voters. There is no requirement that elected officials be lawyers and many are not lawyers. Furthermore, there is no such thing as "legitimate" or "illegitimate" law. If the law is unconstitutional, it can be declared void by the courts. Exactly what unconstitutional laws are you referring to? Those that you don't particularly like or that may cost you money? 3)Definitions in Black's Law Dictionary from 1930 are hopelessly antiquated and of little practical use. Since the 1930's, nearly every field of activity has undergone radical changes. For example, there were no government welfare programs such as social security, Medicare, un-employment insurance before the Roosevelt administration. There was no federal reserve system and government regulation of the economy was completely non-existent. That is the chaos that brought the Great Depression. 4)Why do you think that wages are not income? 5)If that is the case, why is it that so many lawyers are disbarred and sent to jail every year? How come malpractice insurance is prohibitibly expensive? Why is it malpractice insurance even necessary, if what you say is true? What would be treasonous is to have two sets of laws: those that you approve of, and all the others. The fundamental point that you've overlooked is that the court system works on an adversary basis. Each side has it's own lawyers. Very few lawyers are in court representing themselves or even as parties to any kind of litigation. If each side has it's own attorney, how is it that ANYONE has a monopoly on the interpretation of law or control over the outcome of litigation. The fundamental point about legal interpretation is that decisions are published and control subsequent litigation. Once you have written down an interpretation of the law you can't change it by whim. The influence of the courts depends on the quality of the legal analysis that supports a particular decision. If a decision is illogical, grossly unfair or based on prejudice, that fact is glaringly apparent.

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1) Income was defined as meaning wages, or profit made from doing business outside of the United States. There is a little bit of changing the rules after the game has started going on here.


2) Any laws not eminating from Congress are unconstitutional. What more needs to said here? Executive orders do not come from Congress, making enforcemnet of these policies little more than extortion, or racketeering.


In my entire life I cannot give one example of unconstitutional laws being stricken down. Perhaps you can enlighten me.


3) The reasons for the radical change is that there is no accountability any more. If the government don't have to follow the rules (that they enforce on others), yet they try to impose more legislation on us.

I also find it funny that all of the examples you use to illustrate you point are socialist leaning laws that have no place being passed by anything other than referendum. These laws were all part of the New Deal, and they are far from being in harmony with the constitution, and therefoer, the law.


To say that the depression caused the Federal Reserve to come in being is misguided, at best.


4) Wages were defined by the tax code. The tax code clearly states that wages are earned outside of the borders of the U.S.


5) Clearly stated in the article above. The way they have gained complete control over the law, and the manner of its practice was the American Bar Association. The first order of business was to prevent laymen from representing themselves. In todays world, if you try to repesent yourself in a court of law, the first thing tthe Judge will do is tell you that they advise you do not represent yourself, because you may become emotional. Then the first thhing the Judge does is repremend your so that you DO become emotional.


I am not the one advocating two sets of rules, but you seem to be. Clearly, if a man knows the law well enough to represent himself, and the Judge makes it clear that they do not want that to happen, and attempts to complicate matters by letting their opinion interfere with court proceedings, they are interfering with the Justice System, and your right to a speedy trial.

When you are not soliciting the Judges opinion, and they interupt proceedings to give it to you anyway, something is amiss. You are not in the courtroom to win a popularity contest, so wh does the Judge try to influence proceedings with opinion that is of little, or value to the person attempting to get a fair trial, which is their right

[Catch 22]

Quote by: Scribbler1 I don't think anyone is actually implying ALL lawyers are scumbags, but a LOT are. For every decent lawyer there are apparently 10 Johnnie Cochrans who win cases by fooling the terminally stupid while the rest of us shake our heads and subconsciously lump them all together. This is the problem, as we don't usually see the average lawyer at work while the bastards who would say or do anything for any creep with a checkbook get the press. It's also society's own fault as we just keep graduating unnecessary lawyers and once in the real world these guys want to earn a buck but the market is saturated and any case will do; even one the lawyer might not ordinarily take. I'm not defending these people as they should know beforehand they are entering an already bloated profession, but a lot of them DO have to scramble. I heard once that for every engineer graduated in the U.S. there are 7 lawyers. In Japan for every lawyer there are 7 engineers. I'm not sure of the accuracy of this but it would at least appear true. I don't think comparing ours to other countries' is fair. This is probably why lawyers get such a bad rap. There are just too many of them and our society encourages income over ethics, so it seems like a no-brainer that a lot of people would love to land a career where they can pander to wealthy criminals while a law clerk (who wants to be a lawyer HUMSELF some day) does most of the work and the lawyer just engages in the courtroom theatrics.

scrib there's a reason why we have so many lawyers. Unlike every other developed nation on the face of the earth we have judicial review and a judiciary system that has great power independent of this. While in Britain all the lawlords can do is rule something in breach of the EU convention on human rights or say that the executive may have overstepped it's bounds. An American court can overturn any number of laws on a mere whim and the key is that everyone can do it.

You know how we have the public defender system? Because a habitual crook wrote a brief stating that his imprisonment was unconstitutional due to his lack of consul. The guy practically wrote it crayon and the SC heard it anyway, and decided to strike down his and thousands of other inmate’s imprisonment. While this is an extraordinary case it’s an example of how different our legal system is. Any citizen with some legal knowledge and connections to a legal non profit can right a wrong done on them by the government and make it so that no other person will be met with the same fate. This is why we have so many lawyers, it’s not cause Americans are some fucked up culture (well it partly is) but cause we have such a good legal set up designed to enforce the rights of citizens.


However I’m not saying that there are a number of asshole lawyers. To be sure corporate lawyers are the scum of the earth and there are some ambulance chasing bastards, but that’s not to say that we should lump those in with every other kind of lawyer. On the whole much lawyer hating is overblown crap that’s puffed up by the conservative backlash movement that enjoys attacking professional occupations. We have the evil trial lawyers who although have consistently lost in court more and more, win the fabled huge verdict rarely and take massive risks in their suits are demonized for every business malfeasance. Then it’s the idealist lawyers for the ACLU trying to outlaw the bible or some other silly story. And of course you can’t forget the defense attorney helping murderers off the hook because they enjoy doing so.

Personally I think it’s a bunch of shit, being a lawyer is an honorable profession in which one can do a lot of good. Lawyers are the people who won women the right to abortions without the coat hangers, lawyers are the people who spend tireless hours fighting companies who’ve dumped toxic waste in some park, lawyers are the ones who got schools desegregated, to put it plainly without lawyers an innumerable amount of good would not have come about.

Note: yes this is coming from a prospective law student and activist lawyer to be, please don't disregard it cause of that though.

[Scribbler1]

I think I DID say that our perception of lawyers is partly due to the showboating Johnnie Cochrans of the world and this causes the knee-jerk perception that they are all scum. I believe I mentioned they are NOT, btw.
But, having said that I still say most of them are unnecessary and a goodly number of them ARE scum. If, as you say, we HAVE a lot of them because we NEED a lot, then the ABA should police the lawyers and expel the scum. To my knowledge they do not, or not very often. If you plan on becoming one of the good guys, what is wrong with throwing Cochran out and you taking his place?

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: Catch 22 Personally I think it’s a bunch of shit, being a lawyer is an honorable profession in which one can do a lot of good. Lawyers are the people who won women the right to abortions without the coat hangers, lawyers are the people who spend tireless hours fighting companies who’ve dumped toxic waste in some park, lawyers are the ones who got schools desegregated, to put it plainly without lawyers an innumerable amount of good would not have come about.

And the same lawyers, for a price, will be challenging the right to abortions, and fighting FOR companies who've dumped toxic wastes in some park, as well as corporate thieves from Worldcom, Enron, and countless others. All in the name of Justice of course, but always for a fee, too.

Lawyers are the prime reason that no one is responsible for any of their own actions anymore, every bad thing that happens is always someone else's fault, and, for 1/3 of the settlement, they'll prove it to a gullible jury. A lawyer is also a citizen, but they are citizens whose primary responsibility is to their fees rather than to society. They'll use the justice system to protect that fee, and to hell with society. They've seen to it that Justice isn't based on judicial merit, but instead is based on the ability to pay. The droppings of the lowest bottom-feeders of society are a banquet for lawyers.

[Catch 22]

Quote by: Scribbler1 I think I DID say that our perception of lawyers is partly due to the showboating Johnnie Cochrans of the world and this causes the knee-jerk perception that they are all scum. I believe I mentioned they are NOT, btw. But, having said that I still say most of them are unnecessary and a goodly number of them ARE scum. If, as you say, we HAVE a lot of them because we NEED a lot, then the ABA should police the lawyers and expel the scum. To my knowledge they do not, or not very often. If you plan on becoming one of the good guys, what is wrong with throwing Cochran out and you taking his place?

There's nothing wrong with policing the legal profession, it's just that it takes a lot of resources and we have no idea how large a percentage of lawyers this is. Plus what scumly acts would you include? Cochran may be a douche but he's also a defense lawyer and well, being a grandstanding douche is part of the job. I may say that corporate lawyers are immoral bastards, but it's also their job to be immoral. Part of the adversarial system is that lawyers in some cases have to be evil so as to ensure the security of the system and the rights of citizens. So really you’ve got a rather gray line here.


Zeebadee- thank you for the anti intellectual screed it proves my point exactly. Some lawyers, will for a price be fighting against those things, but others will be fighting for them. As I said before, the adversarial process is the backbone of western law. Thus you need both sides to be represented with equal ferocity so as to ensure the integrity of the system and the rights of the citizen.

Now of course I have issues with the massive fees and legal costs that have been accrued with excessive legal proceedings. That doesn’t mean we can’t try and remedy this without forcing law to become highly simplified and cumbersome.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Catch 22 There's nothing wrong with policing the legal profession, it's just that it takes a lot of resources and we have no idea how large a percentage of lawyers this is.

This apparent contradiction is exactly why there is a problem with people's view of lawyers. The common belief is that they are mostly scum and as a body they do NOT do anything about their misbehaving bretheren. I don't care what resources they need to use; any group that enjoys so much power in society MUST police themselves, and if they don't (and I hate to say this) the government will do it for them. And the reason they don't know how many bad lawyers there are is because they DON'T police themselves. I can only conclude they don't CARE how many there are.

Plus what scumly acts would you include? Cochran may be a douche but he's also a defense lawyer and well, being a grandstanding douche is part of the job. I may say that corporate lawyers are immoral bastards, but it's also their job to be immoral. Part of the adversarial system is that lawyers in some cases have to be evil so as to ensure the security of the system and the rights of citizens. So really you’ve got a rather gray line here.

If their job is to be immoral, then I think they should look elsewhere for employment, and so should you. There will be an eventual backlash and ALL lawyers will get caught up in it as the people will assume they are ALL bad because they did nothing to alter that perception.
As for what acts to include, the first thing lawyers should do is come up with their own list, make it public, stick to it and strictly enforce it. Anything less and the entire profession should shut up about being maligned because they ASKED for it.

[Catch 22]

This apparent contradiction is exactly why there is a problem with people's view of lawyers. The common belief is that they are mostly scum and as a body they do NOT do anything about their misbehaving bretheren. I don't care what resources they need to use; any group that enjoys so much power in society MUST police themselves, and if they don't (and I hate to say this) the government will do it for them. And the reason they don't know how many bad lawyers there are is because they DON'T police themselves. I can only conclude they don't CARE how many there are.

The legal profession does police itself, hence why people often have their bar cards revoked when accused of malfeasance. The fact is though that any major effort would again need a degree of unity that’s not seen in law. Lawyers aren’t all friends there are many sectors of law perpetually at war with each other. You think we can get environmental lawyers and corporate attorneys together without a problem then you’re dreaming. Also you’ve yet to define what needs to be policed. Lots of stuff can fall under attorney jurisprudence such as client privilege, and while morally bad has to continue to ensure the integrity of law and the rights of others.

If their job is to be immoral, then I think they should look elsewhere for employment, and so should you. There will be an eventual backlash and ALL lawyers will get caught up in it as the people will assume they are ALL bad because they did nothing to alter that perception. As for what acts to include, the first thing lawyers should do is come up with their own list, make it public, stick to it and strictly enforce it. Anything less and the entire profession should shut up about being maligned because they ASKED for it.

Bad and good don’t apply well when it comes to the legal code and you should know that before jumping into a diatribe against it. is it morally ok for me to defend a criminal who’s told me he’s done it? Conventionally I would say no, but the adversarial process demands this so that the rights of everyone else stay intact. This and many other things apply making any kind of “morality” well, rather hard.

Ps I’d appreciate not using caps no need to become so angry dude, you’re a mod you gotta keep chill.

[Scribbler1]

That's not anger but emphasis, and I've been doing that since back in 2003. Don't worry about it, no one else ever has.

I don't understand how bad and good don't apply to the legal code. If those basic concepts don't apply, then the legal system is in more trouble than I thought. If, as a lawyer, I would have to periodically abandon my principles or personal ethics for the adversarial process, then maybe I DON'T have any business discussing lawyers.
But after seeing so many lawyers in action, there is no way you are changing my opinion of them in general.

[tivodan1116]

Bad and good do apply to the legal system, but moral ethics are different from legal ethics. This is necessary to ensure everyone a fair trial. Many people would say that defending a "guilty" party zealously is wrong, but is required within the bounds of legal ethics. Our Constitution requires that someone accused of a crime has a fair trial, and I can't think of any other way to ensure fairness then to make sure that at least one person on your side has the same educational background and training as the person accusing you (the DA). Furthermore, to note a point of Constitutional law here, NO lawyer has ever defended a guilty client at trial. All clients are innocent until the moment the judge or jury renders a guilty verdict.

Ok, i've spent too much space before getting to my real point, which has been stuck in my craw since i started reading this topic:

To put it somewhat nicely: MB, your supposed argument about the "missing" 13th Amendment and the supposition that it would make all lawyers traitors because they carry a title of esquire is pure conspiracy-theorist poppycock with no basis in reality.

http://www.thirdamendment.com/nobility.html

That link exposes your argument (and David Dodge's brilliantly convincing but altogether untrue 1993 essay) as the tax-dodging extremist conspiracy theory that it is.

To sum up the FAQ and related article on that page: The Titles of Nobility Amendment never passed, and even if it did pass, would not render the profession of lawyer illegal by any reasonable (meaning: not bunker-digging extremists) stretch of the imagination. Esquire, as someone should point out, is not a title of nobility in the United States, and if it were, no lawyer would have it because the Constitution already forbids the government from deeming titles of nobility upon individuals. The right to practice law in a particular jurisdiction is granted by that jurisdiction's court, a part of the government. Therefore, the only thing that makes a lawyer able to practice law (a certificate of admittance to a particular jurisdiction) ALREADY cannot be a title of nobility simply because the ACTUAL, REAL Constitution that exists outside of fantasyland would prohibit it.

Simply because some bondage/fetish dude makes his "slave" gf call him "Sir" does not nobility make.

Something does not exist simply because you say it exists.

[Milton Bradley]

Perhaps that is why the Thirteenth Ammendment was "lost".


That does still not resolve the obvious conflict of interest. Nor does it attempt to address the problem of the layperson being prevented from acting as their own council, and the takeover of law, and the manner of its practice by the American Bar Association.