s/o sick of the lawyer bashing

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure what the image is that comes to mind when so many folks decide to demean lawyers on this site, but it is a good a noble profession. We are the defenders of liberty. When one is in any sort of trouble- the first call for help is to an attorney. And don't fool yourself thinking that you could never be in that type of trouble. Someone steals your identity and starts writing bad checks, you could find yourself enmeshed in legal trouble not of your own making.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" is from Henry VI. When you want to inflict tyranny on the people, you remove the guadians of liberty and independent thinking. The thread about a JD being a doctorate had a lot of PhDs swearing that a JD was worthless because it didn't contribute to society. We protect your ability to advance new ideas and protect your rights to them. If Galileo were in America with a good lawyer, things would have been quite different. To the PhDs and others who publish these new ideas- it is the lawyers that make sure your intellectual property rights are protected.

Just some food for thought next time thoughtless lawyer-bashing comes to mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure what the image is that comes to mind when so many folks decide to demean lawyers on this site, but it is a good a noble profession. We are the defenders of liberty. When one is in any sort of trouble- the first call for help is to an attorney. And don't fool yourself thinking that you could never be in that type of trouble. Someone steals your identity and starts writing bad checks, you could find yourself enmeshed in legal trouble not of your own making.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" is from Henry VI. When you want to inflict tyranny on the people, you remove the guadians of liberty and independent thinking. The thread about a JD being a doctorate had a lot of PhDs swearing that a JD was worthless because it didn't contribute to society. We protect your ability to advance new ideas and protect your rights to them. If Galileo were in America with a good lawyer, things would have been quite different. To the PhDs and others who publish these new ideas- it is the lawyers that make sure your intellectual property rights are protected.

Just some food for thought next time thoughtless lawyer-bashing comes to mind.

I agree that we are certainly better off living under the rule of law, and of course we need lawyers to do so. I respect lawyers and I agree with the points you make above. However, I think you are a bit thin-skinned. You would probably agree that our legal system ( like all of our systems) needs reforms. There are admirable lawyers doing admirable work, and there are also lawyers who make enormous amounts of money for each other with frivolous litigation. The English rule should be adopted in American jurisprudence. The loser must pay the winner's costs. This procedure could cut down on the frivolous suits that I think most people are referring to when they criticize lawyers. Other professions are also " bashed" a lot in our society ( particularly teachers these days). Some of which is legitmate, some is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure what the image is that comes to mind when so many folks decide to demean lawyers on this site, but it is a good a noble profession. We are the defenders of liberty. When one is in any sort of trouble- the first call for help is to an attorney. And don't fool yourself thinking that you could never be in that type of trouble. Someone steals your identity and starts writing bad checks, you could find yourself enmeshed in legal trouble not of your own making.

Just some food for thought next time thoughtless lawyer-bashing comes to mind.

If you defend liberty on a daily basis, good for you and good for society, but let's not get carried away here. Your statement sounds like Lloyd Blankfein claiming that" Goldman Sachs does God's work."
While there are a lot of lawyers whose work is essential and benefits society, they are far outnumbered by those whose sole raison d'etre is to extract heavy rents for supposedly guiding their clients through a horribly litigious environment of their own making, those who incite, promote and prolong unnecessary and ruinous litigation simply to rake in hourly fees, and those who downright screw their clients because it is advantageous to themselves.
A good friend of mine was sacked from the first associate job he had because, poor naive thing that he was, he settled a case that his firm had been litigating for several years, cutting off the revenue stream from that client. The client was elated, and he lost his job. Enough said?

Shakespeare was obviously on to something.

[Anonymous]

Then stop talking about yourselves all the time. I have a very respectable job, but I don't feel the need to constantly bring it up on this site. And I don't talk about salary in every other thread. Surely, there are plenty of other sites where you honorable souls can commiserate.

[Anonymous]

Although some lawyer-bashing is legitimate and understandable, most of it's not. First of all, people are cheap and penny-wise-pound-foolish, so they don't want to seek expert guidance and help but then need to and it ends up costing them a lot more than if they'd gone to start with. Also, often people have to work with lawyers during a very difficult time of their life (divoce, death, being sued, injured and need to sue, etc.) so there's a bad association there.

It's all well and good to bash a lawyer, but as soon as you get in trouble, whom do you call? A (hopefully good) laywer.

[Anonymous]

It seems like it's usually the lawyers bashing the lawyers, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Anonymous]

I'm a lawyer, and you have some points, but you don't get that people can get jealous or angry about the fact that many of us earn a hell of a lot more money than most Americans could ever dream of earning? I earn three times as much as my friend who is a teacher and two times as much as another friend who is a physical therapist, and hell probably five times as much as another friend who works for a non-profit serving low income people. And I probably don't work more hours than they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then stop talking about yourselves all the time. I have a very respectable job, but I don't feel the need to constantly bring it up on this site. And I don't talk about salary in every other thread. Surely, there are plenty of other sites where you honorable souls can commiserate.

THIS! There are a ton of other industries on this board that don't have to mention their industry in every freakin post. Most of the time the defenders of liberty single themselves out.

By the way, rather than saying BIGLAW we should start using the acronym DOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a lawyer, and you have some points, but you don't get that people can get jealous or angry about the fact that many of us earn a hell of a lot more money than most Americans could ever dream of earning? I earn three times as much as my friend who is a teacher and two times as much as another friend who is a physical therapist, and hell probably five times as much as another friend who works for a non-profit serving low income people. And I probably don't work more hours than they do.

Um, people aren't jealous. They just think you're an asshole for talking about how much money you make.

[Anonymous]

I think you should make a DOL t-shirt and wear it under your blouse everyday. Or a shirt with a DOL ripping open their shirt, superman style.

I'm a DOL damn it! I demand respect!

[Anonymous]

Some of it is just a reaction the annoying personality type that is more common in laywers, especially litigators. They're not jerks because they're lawyers but they did choose to become lawyers because they are argumentative, litigious a-holes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then stop talking about yourselves all the time. I have a very respectable job, but I don't feel the need to constantly bring it up on this site. And I don't talk about salary in every other thread. Surely, there are plenty of other sites where you honorable souls can commiserate.

THIS! There are a ton of other industries on this board that don't have to mention their industry in every freakin post. Most of the time the defenders of liberty single themselves out.

By the way, rather than saying BIGLAW we should start using the acronym DOL.

OP here- Whenever I have mentioned that I am a lawyer in a post, it is usually because I am identifying a potential legal issue that a poster may have. There is a woman trying to get money back from a swindling doctor and she's getting free legal advice from lawyers on the site. It's helpful to know when legal advice is coming from an actual lawyer and not someone who may have some experience, but might be less informed on the law. Same ID I would appreciate from a doctor on the parenting board in a post about asthma.

We all come into contact with legal issues often, so they appear frequently on these boards.

I think we should use DOL, too. Biglaw is a specific group of lawyers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then stop talking about yourselves all the time. I have a very respectable job, but I don't feel the need to constantly bring it up on this site. And I don't talk about salary in every other thread. Surely, there are plenty of other sites where you honorable souls can commiserate.

THIS! There are a ton of other industries on this board that don't have to mention their industry in every freakin post. Most of the time the defenders of liberty single themselves out.

By the way, rather than saying BIGLAW we should start using the acronym DOL.

THIS! I own a marketing firm, so from this point forward, I'm going to preface every post with my job title and start lots and lots of threads, inquiring how much other marketing executives earn.

[Anonymous]

I also find lawyer bashing to be really odd (I guess that's because all of us in my family are lawyers). I find insurance salesmen to be really gross and nobody bashes them all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of it is just a reaction the annoying personality type that is more common in laywers, especially litigators. They're not jerks because they're lawyers but they did choose to become lawyers because they are argumentative, litigious a-holes.

Hmmm...see: politicians.