Is it just me or are some lawyers just plain pond scum?

[Stinky The Clown]

Bad lawyers make good laws look bad.

It seems ever since that pain drug (whateverthefucknameitwas) was recently banned, I have heard more than the usual number of personal injury lawyers on the radio and on TV trolling for victims to re-exploit.

I do NOT mean to condemn all lawyers ... or even lawyers who come by honest, injured clients honestly.

Now, if **I** (as a card carrying liberal) am offended by these troll ads, how do folks on the other side see them? And remember, in the last election cycle Edwards was vilified by the right for being a **good** lawyer.

Two issues come out of this for me.

1) the sheer blood sucking nature of the lawyers who do this

2) the generally accepted connection between them (they are, after all, lawyers) and us.

We have to find some way to break these associative perceptions.

[Ardee]

1. O man are you going to get it!!!

A while back I told a lawyer joke, a rather innocuous one at that. man did I get flamed by some legal eagles with absolutely no sense of humor. Did I care? Not bloody likely, nor did my wife, the attorney.....

[K-W]

10. This isnt a lawyer joke, its nasty pro-corporate propaganda.

I like lawyer jokes. I dont like nasty pro-corporate propaganda. I am not a laywer.

[linazelle]

2. Who cares how folks on the other side see them? It's a nonissue

as far as I'm concerned since the folks on the other side only want to prevent lawyers--good and bad--from winning judgements against their corporate cronies. The few that you mention do not negate the overall good that lawyers do in society.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. I am actually NOT opposed to lawyers or the work they do

I am only put off by these guys ..... as I tried to say in my original post.

[tjdee]

3. Are some doctors pond scum? Some bankers? Some bus drivers?

Everyone wants to badmouth a lawyer till they need one.

Want to break these associate perceptions?

How 'bout pointing out that better than 20 U.S. Presidents were lawyers/had a degree in law, including Abraham Lincoln?

I haven't even bothered to look at the number of lawyers involved in drafting our Constitution, since everyone claims to be so in love with that document.

How 'bout pointing out that George "I'm Stupid" Bush would have had a law degree if he wasn't rejected?

It's so ridiculous. Maybe this country can crucify doctors next. They give out DRUGS! To people!! :eyes:

[Stinky The Clown]

5. "Are some doctors pond scum? Some bankers? Some bus drivers?"

Probably .... in fact, I **know** some doctors are ..... the medicare cheats. The ones who prescribe for guys like Rush Limbaugh.

I guess what I object to is the perception that we are pro lawyer (which we are and which I am) and then these guys are out there clearly trolling for victims and **appearing** to be out for their own enrichment.

[tjdee]

9. Why do we have to be responsible for those people?

Do Republicans claim responsibility for Ken Lay?

Do they claim responsibility for the KKK and other hate groups, members of which probably voted for Bush?

Surely lawyers trolling for victims aren't as bad as that!

Not to mention, I don't find those kind of lawyers to be any different than salesmen.

We can be pro-good lawyers. We're not responsible for the bad ones, and we're not responsible for people being stupid enough not to recognize the difference, IMO.

[BigBigBear]

6. Thank you

my wife was a lawyer. She worked her ass off to help people with corrupt insurance companies, cheap and unlawful busts, slumlords and shitbucket dads who ran out on their families.

And she got stiffed by a lot of them as well.

I'll always be proud of the work she did.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. In fact, right there in the original post it says:

"I do NOT mean to condemn all lawyers ... or even lawyers who come by honest, injured clients honestly."

[K-W]

7. This is a joke right?

Heres a lesson in the legal system.

Corporation releases drug.
Drug kills and injures people.
Court rules that corporation must compensate.
Lawyers find people who DESERVE compensation.

And the lawyers get a percentage of that compansation for DOING THIER JOBS.

What exactly should lawyers do? Sit around in thier homes playing with thier pets? Their job is to assist people in legal matters, it is thier job to find people with legal issues.

The only way to possibly find fault with this completely innocent practice is to be a pure reactionary who lets thier emotions choose thier opinions because lawyer commercials are irritating.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Over the years I have needed a lawyer for a variety of reasons

and each one I chose was a referral from a trusted friend ... who happens to be my lawyer.

Were I not to have a lawyer as a friend, I probably would have called the bar association for a referral.

I am also a professional (not a doctor or lawyer) and come by my clients through referrals. My only advertising is in the yellow pages, our web site, and our professional association.

So might I be skewed by emotion? Yeah, I probably am. I am also sensitive enough to know that if I feel this way, so do others. And I also am emotionally invested in having our party win an election every decade or so and and am perhaps hypersensitive to "the things we do" that might in any way cast us in a less than favorable light.

<edit - typo>

[K-W]

12. So we should pretend that right wing lies are true so we can win?

Where exactly does that stop?

I think weve learned in the last 10 years that the way you beat someone is to present an ALTERNATIVE.

Im glad that you are smart with your legal affairs. The reason this happened is because people like you, with competent lawyers, went to court and proved that a corporation had broken the law.

The people like you have already had justice served. There are, however many people who arent like you. Who are not as smart with thier affairs. People who dont pay attention to or understand the law enough to know that they could get compensation for damages done to them. There is only one way to reach these people, and that is to advertise to them.

The point is that the practice of advertising to find people with legitimate reason to make a claim in court is not only acceptable but admirable.

Now obviously, like anything in life, people try and exploit the system. Some lawyers are not honest, and they find, in representing people who are not wise with thier legal affiars, easy prey in this business.

Those people are criminals and scoundrels. They are a destinct minority of lawyers, they just find thier niche in lower level tort law because people like you make sure you have an honest lawyer.

There are people like that in every walk of life. It is absolute wrong to make these gross inaccurate generalization about lawyers to marginalize them.

Lawyers are our fellow citizens. They are individual human beings. Most good, some bad. And none of them deserve to draw your predjudice.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. The "ALTERNATIVE" might well be the sort of thing

Edwards was discussing in the campaign.

And that's what needs to be out there. BUt I am not the one to come up with the solution. I'm simply not qualified to do so. I **am** qualified to talk about the ethics in my own profession and have, vigorously, and continue to serve on a peer review committee to deal with matters of ethics.

Why do we not hear this from the legal community? True enough, it may have been out there and I missed it. That is entirely possible. But don't you agree that we should be talking about it ... the alternative?

My title to this post was inflamatory .... and perhaps a mistake. But I am comfortable with my sentiment. It is the *perception* that is the issue. And for me, not an uneducated, uninvolved dunderhead, the perception that ***some small percentage*** or lawyers troll sleazily and in turn cause all lawyers to have a bad image to some observers is real.

In my state, I recall the anguish with which the legal community debated the issue of lawyers advertizing. There was passion on both sides. In the end, they decided to allow it. The result was all those smoking car wreck/call me ads.

Your point is that these ads reach poeple who might otherwise be unaware they have recourse. And that's a good thing. But I suspect there could be other ways.

[K-W]

19. Can you please articulate what the actual problem is?

The commercials arent unethical on thier own merit. They are, in fact, a positive thing on thier own merit. They should be serving to find people who deserve damages.

So the commercials arent the problem.

The problem would be if somewhere during that process something was being abused. Fixing that abuse, if there is any, would certainly be an admirable goal.

But it has nothing on earth to do with lawyers being bad, it has to do with the particular structure of the legal system that creates openings for bad lawyers to abuse it.

But Ive seen no reliable numbers on how widespread such abuse is. And until I see a number that proves that there is substantial abuse, this would remain a low priority issue for me.

So please, explain exactly where the abuse is taking place, who is being abused (specifically), and we can discuss the importance of finding ways to stop that abuse.

Just as we discuss ways to solve any problem here.

But instead youve chosen to post a vague attack on unspecified members of the legal profession for working personal injury and advertising.

[chieftain]

13. Part of the Republican game plan

is to vilify lawyers , ban all damage awards other than compensatory , and thereby dry up a key source of Democratic fund raising . I am a lawyer and I , too , get a bit tired of the number of such ads . They do serve the legitimate purpose of informing victims of corporate misfeasance that there may be a remedy available to them .
I appreciate your sensitivity but we have to understand that this group of Republicans will trash anyone or anything that stands in the way of one party rule . We are going to have to stand with our friends even if they are less than esthetically attractive .

[K-W]

14. Not just that, but the caps would leave corporations unaccountible.

Yet in our country, it is popular wisdom that when an individual wins a big reward, it is the individual and their lawyer who deserve scorn.

Somehow the corporation who released medicine that killed people isnt even a part of the picture.

[chieftain]

16. Absolutely , that's why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

was so apoplectic about Edwards . They want to be sure that the debate is framed as bloodthirsty lawyers as leaches as opposed to some corporations making decisions which cripple or swindle innocent paeople but remain immune from responsibility .

[Stinky The Clown]

18. I could not agree more

Caps are just plain wrong. And as to the offending corporation getting bad press, I wish we could have that replace the Scott Peterson crap! Alas ... no sensationalism apart from the size of the judgment.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. Thank you

I'm glad you see my point. It was not my intent to paint all lawyers with the same broad brush.

In many ways, my comment was not even about lawyers. It was really about the perception of such advertising.

Are there other ways in which the same message could reach the same constituency? PSA's instead of ads for "Your Best Friend: Joe Dokes, Attorney at Law"? Community outreach? ..... even working through churches. I dunno. But there must be a better way.

[chieftain]

20. You're welcome . The sad fact is that this kind of advertising

works . It's just one more example of the coarsening of American life .

[K-W]

21. Why would you write what you wrote

if your point was just that lawyers have a perception problem?

Were the words "I think that lawyers have a perception problem that extends to the party." taken by someone else? So you had to go with Some lawyers are pond scum?

[Stinky The Clown]

22. Mistake previously acknowledged, Responsibility taken

But the discussion has been a good one.

Some things have occurred to me as this went forward .......

As an alternative to the ads I referred to, why not take the same money the individual attorney spends on his ad ... and he on his ad ... and her ... and them ..... pool the money through the Bar and develop some strong, widely aired PSA's? When it is a case of a bad product with real injuries, that would serve the public and show the legal community to be "above the fray" as it were.

On the other hand, can you agree that ads from "Your Best Friend: Joe Dokes, Esq." saying things like: "cerebralpalsey?birthinjuries?caraccident?dui?criminalcharges? drop a dime to 555-1212." are little beyond the pale?

Again, to me, its the perception, not the facts.

[K-W]

23. I really dont see the problem with the commercials.

The lawyers wouldnt air them if they didnt make them money. So as long as the money that is being made is being on legitimage cases, I really dont see why anyone would find it objectionable.

Sure they could do it through PSA's, but honestly I like my advertisements in the form of advertising. As long as the advertising is honest, and the service legitimate, im fine.

If the ads arent honest, and the service isnt legitimate. If people are being victimized in any way, it should be illegal and enforced.

[OneBlueSky]

24. there was a time not too long ago when lawyers were forbidden . . .

to advertise on tv . . . and even when the ban was lifted, many of the more reputable firms still refused to advertise, considering it something akin to ambulance chasing . . . personally, I would never retain an attorney who advertises on tv . . .

[rooboy]

25. James Baker is certainly pond scum. n/t