--- 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
>
> ___________________________________
>
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>
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