Re: hello

[chasbo@xxxxxxxxx]

Way back in the late 1950's a friend told me essentially the same
thing.  I was idealistic and did not want to believe him.  I was in my
early twenties, naieve, not that familiar with the legal system and
corporate America.

Unfortunately nothing has changed; corporate America with the big
bucks is still using the legal system to stomp on the little guy,
regardless of ethics. I'm seventy-one now and I see this as epidemic.
Too many lawyers working the side of the fence with the most bucks.  I
wonder who is pushing the Rojas case?  Is it someone in the
corporation dictating to the lawyers? Or is it a wiley lawyer feeding
a corporate someone baited language so that the corporate someone
bites, therefore giving the lawyer continued carte blanche to fight on
(insuring continued employment for the lawyer).

When the spigot is open and the owner of the bucket sees it being
filled with gold coins, the urge to keep the spigot wide open is
strong; therefore it is in the bucket owner's greedy interests to
manipulate the controller of the spigot, by stroking the controller
with his sales pitch.  Yes, lawyers are salesmen. They need to sell
themselves first, and some are good at it.  But not all salesmen are
ethical, and not everything they say is truth.  But since most have
mortgages, car payments, food bills, etc., a continued supply of gold
coins is essential.

Ethics be damned, fairness be damned.  Too bad.

 On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 09:23:09 +0100, Clarence Darrow
<fritz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>It would be nice if the civil court system were just that, civil. A
>>technique used merely for resolving disputes between two honest men.
>>However, it seems like you've never had the real pleasure of experiencing
>>the true civility of it all.
>
>Roland is absolutely correct.  At the risk of being redundant, let me give
>a step-by-step explanation of why our civil justice system is broken:
>
>1.  Huge, well-financed corporation gets a hard-on for someone.  Whether
>it's justified or not is largely irrelevant at this stage.  Corporation
>hires a lawyer to write a cease-and-desist letter.
>
>2.  The soon-to-be defendant figures he's done nothing wrong, and more or
>less politely tells the corporation to stick it.
>
>3.  Corporation gets enraged at the impudence of this mere mortal
>disobeying its orders, and decides to make life unpleasant for him.  It
>tells the lawyers to sue the poor SOB.  Fifty grand in legal fees is not a
>large sum for a national corporation trying to play king of the hill.
>
>4.  The little guy discovers no lawyer wants to help him unless he's
>getting paid.  He also discovers that defendants in civil suits do not have
>a constitutional right to a lawyer.  The free legal aid services are not
>real interested in business disputes; they want civil rights cases, cases
>where poor people are getting cheated out of their life savings, stuff like
>that.
>
>5.  If the little guy has assets like equity in his home, he can choose to
>hire a lawyer for a few hundred bucks an hour, and watch his life savings
>disappear.  Defense lawyers don't work on contingency, since the best
>outcome is that the defendant doesn't have to pay money to the big
>corporation.  The defendant doesn't even know how much it's going to cost,
>since every time the plaintiff's lawyers file a motion, his lawyer will
>need to respond, and who knows how many motions will be filed? how much
>discovery will be required? how many court appearanes?
>
>6.  In our legal system, generally, each side pays its own legal fees.  So,
>the big corporation has to pay a few extra bucks to the lawyers, while the
>individual defendant is driven into the poorhouse, even if he wins.
>That's fine with the big corporation; it made its point:  follow its
>orders, or risk being crushed financially.  It's a warning to others, and
>there is no bad outcome from its point of view.
>
>7.  It's even better if the defendant is poor, and can't afford a lawyer at
>all.  That pretty much guarantees he will lose, since he won't be able to
>mount much of a legal defense against a team of high-priced lawyers.
>
>And that, Virginia, is the reality of the American civil justice system.
>The rich beat up the poor.  And it's all perfectly legal.
>
>Sableman, et al, I know you're reading this. You are legal thugs, the
>strong beating up the weak, and you're doing it for the money.  Tell me how
>that differs from being an enforcer.  You're just using legal documents
>instead of brass knuckles.
>
> How do you sleep nights?
>