I worked with Army lawyers in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corp (or JAG as we are called) and with civilian attorneys in Sodom on Puget Sound for 15 years after I retired. In civilian life, these attorneys were trial lawyers. I hated trial lawyers. Our firm did everything we could to screw people in the ground. If it was a company, firm, whatever, that had the bucks, they went for the jugular, to get every penny they could. They loved that 35% contingency fee they cut out of what the plaintiff’s won. Our firm made millions. The attorneys made millions. We got table scraps. Yeah, we made nice salaries, but nothing even remote close, not even in the same universe as attorneys. And, no, they could not have done the job without the staff to back them up. One of my attorneys did not even know how many copies were need, how to serve the opposition with the case, nothing, except how to draft the lawsuits up. And, they always say how smart attorneys are. Yup, book smart. Nothing else in the file could they do. Sorry attorneys out there, just the way it was in the big time law firm I worked for in Sodom.
That’s a shame you worked for such a firm. All our admin and paprprofessionals got a good share of both my contingency and our partnership earnings. Contingencies quarterly and profits annually, same time we did.
I can believe it.
There ARE ethical lawyers out there (I’ve even worked with them a number of times), but resisting the siren song must be an incredible burden at times. The ethical people won’t always haul in the biggest bucks. But the bible itself warns us that the unethical ones won’t get away forever with their game. In fact, at least if they won’t repent, their money will end up going “to those who pity the poor.”
But anyhow, what the law says means less than the discretion exercised by those who appeal to it. We talk about equal under the law, but the truth is that the law isn’t even brought to bear in nearly as many instances as it could theoretically be.
I hate suing someone’s pants off just to sue their pants off. Quite often their wrongdoing will redound upon them in more subtle ways. God’s Spirit can’t ever be cheated.
I was sucked into a case which,although I didn't realize it at first,turned out to be connected with the disappearance of $75 million and several elected officials having received Mafia-like threats ("you've got a nice family there...").It was in papers nationwide due to the sum involved,the fame and wealth of one of the guys being investigated and the threats.
I was literally an innocent bystander (and a small time one at that) but his lawyers ****** me royally...and didn't even bother to use vasoline.
Before this I had a pretty negative view of the "typical" American lawyer.Today I'm convinced that the typical American lawyer (although not all lawyers) are genuine psychopaths.