The death of common sense.

[ChriswUfGator]

OMG - "other peoples money"

"For attorneys these days, the law is not a search for truth, it's a search for clients.........."

"Unlike most economic activities, the legal profession has never been seriously affected by the law of supply and demand.  The more lawyers there are, the more ways they seem to find for expanding business horizons..........if it pays , or just gets publicity, it exists as part of the practice.  Stock market crashes and political power shifts - revenue threatening disasters for some people - are opportunities for attorneys to create new profit centers."

Lawyers and Thieves, Roy Grutman

We are graduating ten lawyers for every engineering graduate.  Law firms spend thousands fishing for clients on TV and radio.

It doesn't take much common sense to see the the legal system in this country has lost a great deal of respect.

Well, I would never even try to argue the advertising thing. It is clearly sleazy, detrimental, and is actively ruining the profession.

As to Roy Grutman's book, I read it many years ago, and I believe you're taking him out of context. That self-congratulatory book, in all it's New-York sleazeball glory, was focused on the collapse of Finley Kumble, and many of Grutman's comments were intended to describe that firm's culture, more than the entire profession.

[ChriswUfGator]

Hence my proposal for the Attorney 2000^tm program, whereby everyone becomes an attorney and litigation becomes the primary industry of this country. It is a "green" industry, so it will have ecological benefits. Leave it to the Chinese to pursue those antique "smokestack industries".

Ya, the Chinese are doing such a fantastic job too! I mean, what with all the melamine in baby formula, poison in dog food, toxic formaldehyde in home wallboard, lead in children's toys, and on and on and on. Gee, who wouldn't be happy with that?

And FWIW, this is mainly my point. There's a cheap-ass way to do things, and then there's the right way to do things. The US legal system insures things are, for the most part, done the right way here. China is, by comparison, the wild west. You see the results of the difference between the two, about every month on the news when the next defective/dangerous/tainted Chinese product scandal breaks.

[stjr]

I have read this thread and agree with points on both sides: we need legal accountability but often it, like many things in life, is a good idea taken to extremes where it borders on the ridiculous.  Needless to say, where the border is is a subjective determination and well meaning people can disagree over it.

But the extremes do need to be addressed.  I can't tell you how many frivolous "slip and fall" claims I have seen.  When an elderly or other "physically disadvantaged" individual, who has a naturally high risk quotient for stumbling, stumbles on good pavement or from stepping off a curb when literally thousands of others have navigated such areas with no problems, it is not reasonable to sue the property owner for damages.  It is a mere hazard of life that even the most able of us will, sooner or later, misstep or stumble along the way due to our inattention, momentary lapse of coordination or proper muscle action, or some other contributing factor of our own making.  Why should a property owner have to automatically settle through their insurers for thousands of dollars everytime someone missteps?

And, why, are property owners so often held accountable for a crime on their property for which the owner had no involvement in and for which no reasonable person could have prevented or would have invested in the extreme measures necessary to prevent such crime (i.e. must EVERY business or landlord provide security guards, have bullet proof glass, maintain doors with locks worthy of Fort Knox, light up the grounds to the brightness of the sun, maintain Orwellian cameras, etc.)?  Often, even when such security is provided, it is compromised by the very employees or tenants who will still sue for damages.  Do you know how few tenants will change the batteries on landlord provided smoke detectors?  Will use unauthorized and unsafe space heaters to avoid JEA even while having efficient heat pumps provided by the landlord?  Will discharge a fire extinguisher and never notify the landlord?  Will use the very locks provided?  Will increase their own risks or create hazards yet hold the landlord or property owner accountable nonetheless?

By the way, I don't think any trial lawyer would deny that there is also a strong correlation between plaintiffs and their lack of income or financial assets.  This further creates the impression among us lay people that much of our litigation is a scheme to both enrich lawyers and those that have failed to achieve financial success through other means.

There is a whole industry of lawyers who live off of making claims averaging from $5,000 to $50,000 with no press, no law suits, no juries.  They just settle for "nuisance" value because they know insurers and business will not find it worth the time and expense to fight back even when they feel they have done nothing wrong.  Due to their volume and widespread impact on nearly every business, these settlements are far more insidious than the multimillion dollar ones that get all the publicity.

Adding to the perception, is that lawyers are also judges and the most prevalent profession in our legislative bodies that pass the laws under which such litigation is allowed to flourish.  As such, the legal profession is almost unchecked resulting in it having nearly free reign in stacking the deck by both making more laws friendly to their profession as well as to deciding how those laws will be imposed upon our society.  Lay people have been left helpless to allay or participate in the magnification of the legal system through the years.