Pssst, Can I Interest You In a Lawyer?

Pssst, Can I Interest You In a Lawyer?
July 22, 2007
When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty.When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace.When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice.
Lin Yutang (1895-1976), Chinese-American writer, translator, and editor.
This time we are not going to dispense with the niceties of: “there are good ones and there are bad ones,” despite the fact that we already know that. In fact, a good friend we have known for over thirty years is an attorney.
The question is, how many of the good ones are there, compared to the bad ones? Particularly when no country has as many lawyers as the United States - more than 152,000 in California alone - three times as many as in all of France. According to Joanne Martin, Assistant Director of the American Bar Foundation in Chicago, in 1988, there were just under 750,000 lawyers in the United States, or approximately one lawyer per 340 people in the United States, up from one lawyer per 695 people in 1951. It is estimated there are over 1 million attorneys in the United States. “The percentage of Americans with a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in Congress is at 14%, the lowest in Gallup's history of this measure -- and the lowest of any of the 16 institutions tested in this year's Confidence in Institutions survey. It is also one of the lowest confidence ratings for any institution tested over the last three decades” reads a June 21, 2007 article by Frank Newport.
The failure of a lawyer to act in accordance with legal and ethical standards can be catastrophic. In criminal cases incompetence can literally be a matter of life and death. In civil cases a great deal of money may change hands, or not, depending on how competent the lawyers are. Fortunately instances of such magnitude are rare. In fact, most disputes between attorneys and clients are not over the cases themselves. "The most common dispute between lawyers and clients is over fees," according to Suzanne Blonder, associate counsel of HALT, an Organization of Americans for Legal Reform. Hence the “enemy within” may not be Islamic Terrorists, as we have been led to believe. Particularly worrisome in light of MIT professor Michael Cusamo’s assertion that “If Microsoft does not change its approach to product development, marketing, and competition more generally, it is likely that someday the company will have more lawyers than programmers”
For example, this past May a federal grand jury in Los Angeles filed a 20-count indictment against Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman, the well-known securities class action firm. It is estimated that since 1965 the firm has settled or won damage awards from corporate and individual defendants that exceed $40 billion. The courtroom accusations stem from charges that the firm paid illegal kickbacks to "clients" who agreed to serve as lead plaintiffs in up to150 class action and shareholder derivative lawsuits the firm brought over the years.
Then there is Daniel Chiulli, who “..was facing a drug charge when his lawyer, Robert Karanian, suggested that a "charitable contribution" would keep him out of jail. Chiulli agreed and gave Karanian $12,000. But Chiulli got suspicious when he heard no mention of the contribution during his sentencing. He asked Karanian where the money went, court records say, and the lawyer told him it had gone to the "Bob Karanian charity," adding, "That's the biggest charity there is”, according to a Courant article by Arielle Becker, published July 11, 2007.
Not to mention the July 19, 2007 AP Story Lawyer accused of stealing from widow's estate detailing a Wallingford Connecticut lawyer, accused of stealing from the estate of a 99-year-old widow, arrested while playing video poker at the Mohegan Sun casino. “But there's one thing for certain about the number of lawyers in America and it is this -- there is no shortage of them. In fact, one could reasonably argue that there are too many lawyers lurking in America. Power of Attorney website. and authors of Smell the Lawyers

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We know from reading California Common Interest Development – Homeowner’s Guide by D. Vanitizian that attorney recommendations by the California Bar are as credible as the Harry Potter adventures.
Just last month Avvo launched a service ranking thousands of lawyers, and faster than a tax-and-spend liberal, the site was sued in federal court in Seattle by a lawyer who claims the information is inaccurate and misleading.
When traveling to a third world country, one has to go through a battery of vaccines months before the trip. Perhaps something analogous can be done when one is in dire need of an attorney: Having built up antibodies, then one should use lawyer ranking services such as Avvo, LawyerRatings.com, or Nolo.com, then proceed to check out prices (for example Costhelper.com) as this is where most of the complaints fall. We would never trust a bar association.

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