[lbo-talk] jury duty

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Fri May 19 11:10:12 PDT 2006


Of course the money intererst is real, Why do you think I have spent the last 4 years defending big tobacco, big oil, big auto, white collar criminals and the like -- not because I think they're nice. I have done it for money. That doesn't mean I'll blow off poor/indigent clients because they can't pay. Nor would any lawyers I know. Of course the are sleazeball lawyers who will fuck you. And fraudster businesspeople who will rob you blind. And incompetent and dishonest and incompetent doctors. My point is not that lawyers are unusually ethical. Rather they are no more or less ethical -- or greedy -- than most people. So I'm ticked off by Jenny's lawyer bashing.

--- info at pulpculture.org wrote:


> At 12:56 PM 5/19/2006, Michael Hoover wrote:
>
>
> >on the other hand, despite well-known problems
> associated with public
> >defenders, studies indicate that when they go to
> trial they are about as
> >likely to win a case and are as disposed to make
> motions and raise
> >challenges to prospective jurors as are their
> generally more experienced
> >counterparts in the d.a.'s office... mh
> >
>
> alas, as a PD I knew said once, "I went into this
> with ideals. I grow up
> poor and Latino in TX. I know that poor people need
> a good defense. But
> what has happened? I got strapped witha bunch of
> DUIs and drug cases that
> should probably not even be in the criminal system
> but in the mental health
> system. And, after awhile, it wears you down. You
> start to believe that
> these are poor people and, as such, they've done
> something wrong anyway.
> You know they've probably got something else to
> hide. After all, they're
> poor. So, you encourage them to plead or you
> secretly thing they should:
> because they're poor and being poor means you're
> likely to be a lawbreaker."
>
> he said he knew that was wrong but that's how, in
> just a few short years,
> he'd come to see the system
>
> We shouldn't be surprised: anyone who goes into
> social service work or
> teaching hoping to 'do good' comes up against
> institutional imperatives
> that turn you into someone who dislikes your
> clients.
>
> I was, btw, privy to what my civil case attorney had
> to say about me when
> he didn't think I was on the phone. The other
> attorney who made the call to
> him was a friend of a friend who was trying to help
> us get information from
> this guy. He put me on conference call without
> letting me know that's what
> he was doing. I listened. It wasn't pretty.
>
> He and another attorney both told me to watch out or
> I'd get screwed over
> because that is far too often what attorneys do. I'm
> sorry that you don't
> want to hear this justin, but if other very
> important, published, important
> attorneys (and this guy is one of the better IP
> lawyers around) tell me
> this, then I have to also believe them. Just like I
> know there are plenty
> of good scholars, I also know the system produces
> plenty of shitty ones.
>
> You're going to have to learn to live with that fact
> and stop getting a
> chapped ass over this stuff. My son and his
> girlfriend work for a big law
> firm. These people do not like their clients. They
> often think their
> clients are shit. They really only care about the
> money. They'll put on a
> big show and even come to believe it, but it the end
> it's about money.
>
> My son's girlfriend is a family member -- the niece
> of the guy who owns the
> firm. They are nice people. They are still all about
> money. The uncle
> donates his time and money feeding the poor. They
> don't live high and
> mighty. They shop at Target. it is still all a cash
> transaction and treated
> as such. it doesn't meant they don't work hard. it
> doesn't mean they don't
> care about their clients AND AT THE SAME TIME think
> their clients are
> lying,thieving shits. It doesn't mean that they
> aren't outraged at hospital
> and insurance company abuses if AT THE SAME TIME
> they see some of their
> clients as money-grubbing sickos even when they know
> that their mental
> illnesses were often caused by the hospital they're
> suing.
>
> the money interst is real, Justin, and it directs
> the practices of the firm
> and it shapes the behavior of individuals. if other
> people can subject
> their own disciplines to such critique, you'll need
> to learn to do the same
> to the law without taking it personally.
>
> I don't take the way I've been treated by attorneys
> and assume that lawyers
> on this list are that way. i don't see those
> attorneys as necessarily bad
> people. It can be explained by social structural
> factors that turn people
> into moral cretins march, march, marching to the
> beat of the capitalist
> juggernaut and then throwing themselves beneath it
> when it rolls by.
>
>
>
>
>
> Bitch | Lab
> http://blog.pulpculture.org
>
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

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