Posted on 03/10/2002 9:19:13 AM PST by Beata
Send a Thank you Bill to your Lawyer - National Attorneys Month 2002
Thank you Lawyer Month is a program to thank selected attorneys for taking resources previously responsible to pay your electricity and grocery bills.
Thanks to your Lawyer, you don't have to worry about those bills anymore! You simply can't pay them, because you're paying for the Esquire's new horse & outdoor - heated olympic-size swimming pool.
Thank you Lawyer Month is:
March 2002 through March 2012 [end-times]
The program is concurrent with the National Thank your Justice Month & Millennium period.
Dear Lawyer,
Your firm is the center of monetary sensory depravation in your community.
During National Attorneys Month, the American Victims-of-Law Association invites your firm to participate in the Thank you Lawyer Month program - a new-nation wide event to highlight and celebrate Lawyers activities and schemes and "defeat stories made possible through the support of selected clients and their very last dollars".
We realize that thanking your Lawyer, by paying his bill, is something you may already be doing on a regular basis. In establishing a Thank You Lawyer Month, we are asking you to band together with millions of Victims across the country to generate media attention on a national scale.
You should invite elected officials, the community, the media, and supporters and other Victims to meet people who have malefited from your Lawyer's defense. Get your board of trustees, friends group, and public supporters involved as early as possible. (They can help you get the elected official there and work with you to improve the day's presentation.)
Good infamous publicity increases awareness and builds support among the general public, government decision-makers and other supporting organizations, and likely legal services users.
Thank you! to all Lawyers, now owners of my own Social Security retirement funds.
"Very truly yours" (not)
Victim-of-Law
ps.:
sample Thank You letter
Dear Mr. (his/hers Esquireness' name) Lawyer:
Enclosed please find a final billing with regard to your handling of my matter.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to call me.
Date/Slip Description Hours/Rate Amount Total
1997/2002 Long-suffering 60,000 $150,000.000 4 mil
Legal-Abuse $495/hr
Syndrome (why not)
TOTAL BILLABLE TIME CHARGES 60,000
TOTAL NEW CHARGES More than you can pay
BANKRUPTCY HOTLINE: 1-800-MOMMA-SAVE-ME-FROM-THEM-SHARKS
I also dislike lawyers as a group but have to admit the only two I ever used were pretty decent guys. They won their case and didn't charge a lot either.
There is one lawyer group that I think are the absolute dregs of society. That group is legal aid.
I have a nephew who was a truly pitiful case. He had been abused by the system and by his ex-wife. She sued him regarding child-support. He had made all his payments and even had pretty good, though not perfect proof. She waited until he could no longer obtain his cancelled checks due to the bank destroying them and went to her local (in another state) child support enforcement office.
Despite the fact that he didn't owe her a cent, that agency and the court would not even allow him to present his evidence. The judge simply told him he had no choice but to enforce the other state's order. He threatened to throw him in jail but finally allowed him 60 days to contact the other state.
This poor fellow was disabled and living in a shack in the woods. He asked legal aid for assistance but they declined, saying it didn't meet their criteria despite his being destitute and having an extremely strong case.
He asked me for assistance and I took him to a lawyer who was kin to both of us. He agreed to take the case for free and commented that legal aid only took PC cases. This lawyer went to court, won the case easily and said the Judge and the local child support office had no business even allowing it in court.
I have no "olympic-sized heated sminning pool" and never will have one. I have no BMW, and never will have one.
I practice constitutional law. It is no way to get wealthy. For my 16 briefs in the Supreme Court I have been paid, on average, about $800. I know civil layers who charge that much for an uncontested divorce. I know criminal lawyers who get paid five times that much to defend a serious driving-while-intoxicated case.
There is honor in defending the Constitution in the highest court in the land. That's why a handful of lawyers specialize in such work, despite the low pay. But, trust me, no one has greater disrespect for the rank and file of the legal profession (and for many of its leaders) than we do.
When you think about the many lawyers who are rip-off artists, don't lump all of us in the same pile. We aren't all like that.
I recall a column years ago by Russell Baker about the invasion of Japanese cars in our markets. He noted the fact that they have far less lawyers than we do. He described lawyers as the "sand in the gears of the American economy."
His solution was that we send Japan a lawyer for every 100 cars they send us. Eventually, their economy would be gummed up and ours would be running better, so our cars would compete effectively with theirs. Not a bad suggestion, but I'm sure the World Trade Organization would charge us with "illegal trade practices" or possibly "dumping toxic wastes without a permit" if we tried to implement the idea.
Congressman Billybob
However, the problem with lawyers is like picking a spouse and getting married. You don't know what you really are getting. If you get a good one, well, you're simply lucky. And if you get a bad one, it's hell.
When the insurance company finally made their first offer, the lawyer thought it was an insult(They offered 10% of the liability ceiling)..The lawyer of course, passed on their offer to my husband, but with his strong recommendation that he turn it down...the lawyer said he was willing and ready to go to trial on just the contingency basis, so sure he was of getting a lot more...and indeed he did...
And it was difficult for us, because we live in Washington state, and the accident happened in Illinois...so my husband, when going back to Chicago for his dads funeral, is when he got the lawyer...so everything had to be done long distance, which made things more difficult...but the lawyer always called us with any news, always took our calls collect, and when they won the case, the head of the firm called us on the phone, and congratulated us with the news...very professional, and they fought hard for us....
So why should anyone begrude lawyers their money, if earned honestly...
There are rotten apples in any profession...there are rotten doctors, rotten police, rotten politicians, rotten this or that...but you are right, it can be difficult finding a good lawyer, one who will work for you, and not rip you off...
We formerly had our own car and home insurance with them, and we found other insurers and cancelled them out...we advised any friends and family we had about the shoddy treatment we had received at their hands...and many of them also took their insurance business elsewhere...Dont suppose our switching our insurance carriers hurt them any, but it was just the principle of the thing...They are not a 'good neighbor', they are a 'bad neighbor'(hint, hint)...
They usually end up thanking me because I respect two attorneys in the entire State of Florida and they appreciate my high regard for them.
The rest can stay in the yellow pages trying to look friendly. It is simply a ploy.
However, in matters of personal injury, going it alone will get the claimant more cash in the long run. PI attorneys are the sharks and then there's all these attorneys running for governor in Florida. I am suffocating. Please go away Janet and McLawyer!
LMAO!!!
Talk about weapons of mass destruction - I could almost begin to pity the Taliban.
I used to defend the legal profession but the more I knew the less I liked about the attorneys I was meeting. I have been on all sides of this issue, preferring defense to plaintiff but plaintiffs have rights too and they lose out all the time. The problem with personal injury attorneys is that signing people up is more important than working on their cases. I did all the work which was fine but at some point, the pleadings need to be signed by the attorney. He let all the finished pleadings back up and to cover him, I'd end up calling the Judge and cancelling all kinds of hearings. Now THAT was embarrassing. Just remember that if your staff takes the time to prepare documents and there's a deadline approaching, the staff's urgency should not be ignored. They are trying to keep you out of deep doo doo.
What is lacking so many times in the legal profession is mutual respect. Many attorneys do not respect their employees or the clients. They don't respect opposing counsel or the opposing party. I've heard it all, I've seen it all and I can honestly say there are only two attorneys in the entire State of Florida plus the attorneys who worked for Dubya in 2000 whom I would ever recommend. The rest deserve all the lawyer jokes that are out there. If you would like to send me a private reply,I will tell you which two attorneys in Florida stand shoulders above the rest. McBride is not one of them and neither is Janet Reno. lol
Good luck to you. If you can make one of your goals to be a different, better kind of attorney, those jokes will be easier to hear because you'll know they don't apply to you. Floriduh Voter
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