Lord Love a Lawyer

This little cartoon, Non Sequitur (courtesy of GoComics,) tells it all. Nobody loves lawyers.

Why? Some would say that lawsuits ruin our society. But that’s not true. Most lawsuits actually create better protections for the common man. The famous McDonald’s lawsuit about the woman burned with coffee? That woman actually suffered serious burns when the coffee spilled on her legs. Led to your local fast food purveyor not giving you molten hot drinks that can permanently scar you.

But listen to the media and it sounds like some woman was irritated by spilled coffee and ended up with a million dollars.

Some say that lawyers make everything complicated. But this also is not true.

Sure, reading the legal type on medications and cereal boxes is confusing. How many of you actually read it? Thought so.

No, those warnings are there to actually warn you. Don’t blame the lawyer. Blame the manufacturer who thinks that “calculated risk” is acceptable in order to make a profit.

Some say lawyers are responsible for letting criminals roam the streets freely. Again, you’re getting this from television.

“His lawyer got him off the charge on a technicality,” is the cop show speak to blame members of my profession for doing their jobs when the cops don’t do theirs.

Yeah, a technicality. Like that pesky 5th Amendment which says the government can’t force a confession out of you. Or that annoying 4th Amendment, which says that the government shouldn’t be able to bust into your home and look for contraband on a whim. Or that stupid requirement that the government prove to 12 impartial people that you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That really gets criminals on the streets.

Well, no. I’ve been a lawyer since 1987. I can honestly say that the times I’ve heard those sweet words, “Not Guilty,” it’s been because my client was actually innocent. The DA has a tendency to look at the world with shit-colored glasses. Everyone is guilty of something.

Do some guilty go free? Yes. But it is a tenet of our law that 10 guilty should go free rather than one innocent person be punished. Even with that high standard, innocent people are convicted–often when the police and DA conspire to hide evidence or present false evidence.

Which do you think is more offensive? That a guilty person walks out the front door due to the age-old standard that the DA needs to prove their case, or that the police state creates evidence to convict the innocent?

So maybe you might want to visit that shop above and buy a t-shirt. You many not really love lawyers but you love what they do to keep you free.