Monday, March 24, 2003
LAWYERS SUCK
Okay, first off, I should warn you that I am a lawyer and have been for two years. This means that you are probably never going to hear me say that ALL lawyers are evil, shit-disturbing, manipulative assholes. On the other hand MANY lawyers I have had to deal with are evil, shit-disturbing, manipulative assholes.
Take, for example, the letter I received today from a lawyer in the "Big City". He's about 10 years my senior which means he's proably been in practice about 15 years (assuming he went straight through school, which I did not). From our first phone conversation I could tell that you thought I was inexperienced and naive. From the tone of his last letter I would guess he thinks I am an idiot too.
You see, I represent this fellow in his mid-twenties who fell down a flight of stairs at a friend's apartment after a night of drinking and very little rest. He busted his leg pretty badly and spent about a year trying to recover before the doctors opened him back up again and pulled the plate and 13 screws out of his femur.
The stairs in question were steep. Steeper than they should have been under the law. Not by a whole lot (it wasn't a ladder) but by enough that someone losing their balance would quite natuarally have trouble getting it back as their feet, automatically searching for the next stair, would probably miss it. Would he have missed it if he had been sober? Who knows? Would he have missed it if the stairs had met the building codes? Who knows?
One thing I do know is that my client isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and that he's not always the best at making appointments and what not. I don't even know if he is telling the truth. For all I know, he was pushed down the stairs. According to the tox screen they ran at the hospital he was drunk enough to make it a bit surprising that he was able to consider getting to the stairs.
On the other hand, the landlord, hearing about the fall, had the stairs replaced THE SAME DAY. He claims that this was for aesthetic reasions and had nothing to do with building codes. He also says that the stairs were up to code to begin with. Fortunately we have photos of the stairs before and I know he's lying about them being up to code. Unfortunately, after having the photos analyzed, the margin of error in the analisis leaves the possiblibility open that the stairs were pretty damn close to the height and width they should have been.
But that is just background. My point is that we have this lawyer on the other side who sends me a letter today that essentially says "boo!". He explains that he is willing, out of the kindness of his heart, to let this whole thing go without making my guy pay any of their costs to date. If we go to court, the lawyer tells me, he will be asking the court for my client to cover these costs.
First off, there is no way they are going to collect anything from my guy. He's got nothing. In fact, he's got nothing AND a bum leg. Second off, the looser ALWAYS has to pay costs for the other side unless there is some really strange circumtance dictating otherwise so telling me that we pay if we lose is kind of redundant.
And it isn't just this guy bluffing at me like I am some kind of retard, it is the condescending tone of his letter. That is what bugs me the most. I mean, it is not like we are enemies. In a lot of ways we are both on the same side. We are both, after all, just being paid (well, he's being paid, I will get paid if I win) to make certain that our clients are treated fairly by each other and the court.
Many of my peers are not like this. We don't treat it all like it is a war. Don't get me wrong, we don't pussy foot around in the courtroom. In the court room the kid gloves are off. But outside the courtroom we don't hassle each other at every turn. We all know, after all, that the best deal between two parties (in most cases) is one that they decide upon between themselves and not one that is decided by the court. Agreeing to get along at some level is almost always better than having someone else tell you who wins and who loses and, in my opinion, court should be reserved for those rare cases where there simply cannot be any middle ground. Cases where one side says black and the other says white. Cases where both sides firmly believe that they, and they alone, are telling the truth and both sides have some facts to back it up. Cases where a reasonable decision would have to rely upon one or more contested issues and not just contested positions.
Many lawyers, particularly older lawyers, do not see this. They believe that the best way to act FOR their client is to adopt their client's position 100% and go to war. Every step of the war is a battle for them, While they understand the position of the other party in a tactical sense, there is no real empathy with it. They cannot understand, for example, that maybe dad wants to see his kids too. Or that maybe mom has a different view as to who was placing the kids in danger. Or that maybe one neighbour has good reasons to think that his property starts by a particular rock even when, at the end of the day, his reasons are not quite up to snuff.
Why are these lawyers the way they are? Why do they make it tough for the rest of us?
I have no idea. Maybe they think it is just a nasty game. Maybe they truly believe that they are accomplishing something. Maybe they like the fact that fighting over every detail increases their bills. Maybe they were just trained that way by the lawyers before them. I certainly have no doubt that they think that they are serving and working towards the best interests of the clients. But, like the neighbour who thinks that a specific rock is the property line, they are probably wrong.
And that is the worst of it. Most people don't go to court. They don't because they either come to understand that they are wrong or come to understand that there is no way they have the proof needed to win. Most people who take all the trouble to go to court, on the other hand, know that they, and they alone are right and they know that they have been wronged by the other guy.
I personally will fight my ass off to get the client the best result that I can get with their story but that does not mean that I believe the client is 100% accurate in telling that story. Every client who leaves the court a loser, feels like he or she has been mis-judged. They feel personally insulted that the judge did not see things their way. They feel like the judge must be an idiot to have not seen what bastards those folks on the other side are. This is natural because the client feels that they are right. But the lawyer...?
I've walked out of a few cases feeling like the judge made the wrong decisison. I have walked out of more than a few wondering whether I could have done soemthing different. Most of the time, however, at the end of the day, the judge seems to me to have made a difficult, but fair, decision. Looking at the facts objectively after they were all on the table, I often would have decided the same thing.
Lawyers like the guy who wrote me today - now way! He loses and it is personal. He didn't make a mistake and his client didn't make a mistake, the judge made a mistake.
No wonder he is a such a grumpy, unhappy looking person. I just wish there was some way to quarantine him and his kind so that the unhappiness didn't spread.
Okay, first off, I should warn you that I am a lawyer and have been for two years. This means that you are probably never going to hear me say that ALL lawyers are evil, shit-disturbing, manipulative assholes. On the other hand MANY lawyers I have had to deal with are evil, shit-disturbing, manipulative assholes.
Take, for example, the letter I received today from a lawyer in the "Big City". He's about 10 years my senior which means he's proably been in practice about 15 years (assuming he went straight through school, which I did not). From our first phone conversation I could tell that you thought I was inexperienced and naive. From the tone of his last letter I would guess he thinks I am an idiot too.
You see, I represent this fellow in his mid-twenties who fell down a flight of stairs at a friend's apartment after a night of drinking and very little rest. He busted his leg pretty badly and spent about a year trying to recover before the doctors opened him back up again and pulled the plate and 13 screws out of his femur.
The stairs in question were steep. Steeper than they should have been under the law. Not by a whole lot (it wasn't a ladder) but by enough that someone losing their balance would quite natuarally have trouble getting it back as their feet, automatically searching for the next stair, would probably miss it. Would he have missed it if he had been sober? Who knows? Would he have missed it if the stairs had met the building codes? Who knows?
One thing I do know is that my client isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and that he's not always the best at making appointments and what not. I don't even know if he is telling the truth. For all I know, he was pushed down the stairs. According to the tox screen they ran at the hospital he was drunk enough to make it a bit surprising that he was able to consider getting to the stairs.
On the other hand, the landlord, hearing about the fall, had the stairs replaced THE SAME DAY. He claims that this was for aesthetic reasions and had nothing to do with building codes. He also says that the stairs were up to code to begin with. Fortunately we have photos of the stairs before and I know he's lying about them being up to code. Unfortunately, after having the photos analyzed, the margin of error in the analisis leaves the possiblibility open that the stairs were pretty damn close to the height and width they should have been.
But that is just background. My point is that we have this lawyer on the other side who sends me a letter today that essentially says "boo!". He explains that he is willing, out of the kindness of his heart, to let this whole thing go without making my guy pay any of their costs to date. If we go to court, the lawyer tells me, he will be asking the court for my client to cover these costs.
First off, there is no way they are going to collect anything from my guy. He's got nothing. In fact, he's got nothing AND a bum leg. Second off, the looser ALWAYS has to pay costs for the other side unless there is some really strange circumtance dictating otherwise so telling me that we pay if we lose is kind of redundant.
And it isn't just this guy bluffing at me like I am some kind of retard, it is the condescending tone of his letter. That is what bugs me the most. I mean, it is not like we are enemies. In a lot of ways we are both on the same side. We are both, after all, just being paid (well, he's being paid, I will get paid if I win) to make certain that our clients are treated fairly by each other and the court.
Many of my peers are not like this. We don't treat it all like it is a war. Don't get me wrong, we don't pussy foot around in the courtroom. In the court room the kid gloves are off. But outside the courtroom we don't hassle each other at every turn. We all know, after all, that the best deal between two parties (in most cases) is one that they decide upon between themselves and not one that is decided by the court. Agreeing to get along at some level is almost always better than having someone else tell you who wins and who loses and, in my opinion, court should be reserved for those rare cases where there simply cannot be any middle ground. Cases where one side says black and the other says white. Cases where both sides firmly believe that they, and they alone, are telling the truth and both sides have some facts to back it up. Cases where a reasonable decision would have to rely upon one or more contested issues and not just contested positions.
Many lawyers, particularly older lawyers, do not see this. They believe that the best way to act FOR their client is to adopt their client's position 100% and go to war. Every step of the war is a battle for them, While they understand the position of the other party in a tactical sense, there is no real empathy with it. They cannot understand, for example, that maybe dad wants to see his kids too. Or that maybe mom has a different view as to who was placing the kids in danger. Or that maybe one neighbour has good reasons to think that his property starts by a particular rock even when, at the end of the day, his reasons are not quite up to snuff.
Why are these lawyers the way they are? Why do they make it tough for the rest of us?
I have no idea. Maybe they think it is just a nasty game. Maybe they truly believe that they are accomplishing something. Maybe they like the fact that fighting over every detail increases their bills. Maybe they were just trained that way by the lawyers before them. I certainly have no doubt that they think that they are serving and working towards the best interests of the clients. But, like the neighbour who thinks that a specific rock is the property line, they are probably wrong.
And that is the worst of it. Most people don't go to court. They don't because they either come to understand that they are wrong or come to understand that there is no way they have the proof needed to win. Most people who take all the trouble to go to court, on the other hand, know that they, and they alone are right and they know that they have been wronged by the other guy.
I personally will fight my ass off to get the client the best result that I can get with their story but that does not mean that I believe the client is 100% accurate in telling that story. Every client who leaves the court a loser, feels like he or she has been mis-judged. They feel personally insulted that the judge did not see things their way. They feel like the judge must be an idiot to have not seen what bastards those folks on the other side are. This is natural because the client feels that they are right. But the lawyer...?
I've walked out of a few cases feeling like the judge made the wrong decisison. I have walked out of more than a few wondering whether I could have done soemthing different. Most of the time, however, at the end of the day, the judge seems to me to have made a difficult, but fair, decision. Looking at the facts objectively after they were all on the table, I often would have decided the same thing.
Lawyers like the guy who wrote me today - now way! He loses and it is personal. He didn't make a mistake and his client didn't make a mistake, the judge made a mistake.
No wonder he is a such a grumpy, unhappy looking person. I just wish there was some way to quarantine him and his kind so that the unhappiness didn't spread.