Missed this Volokh.com thread from a month ago on the subject. My explanation (summed up in a speech ten years ago) overlaps but does not exactly duplicate Orin Kerr’s; a wide variety of opinions get aired in the comments.
Missed this Volokh.com thread from a month ago on the subject. My explanation (summed up in a speech ten years ago) overlaps but does not exactly duplicate Orin Kerr’s; a wide variety of opinions get aired in the comments.
3 Comments
That was a great article with some great comments. Lawyers have fixed their system so that once sued by a lawyer your only defense is to hire a lawyer. They always win. Why can’t the response to an ADA compliant be to hire a $65 an hour handyman to fix the grab bar height? That would be allowed if the lawyers were interested in justice.
I don’t have much experience with lawyers — mainly just an ugly divorce proceeding. But as part of that, I’ve heard from many many lawyers on all sides how bad divorce court is. Tsk, tsk, they say, it’s just terrible, all that people do is buy me fancy vacations and new boats.
So all the lawyers and presumably the judges agree the system is screwed, and none will do anything about it but buy new boats and go to Hawaii.
In 1995, the State Comptroller of Texas announced that 20% of Texas lawyers hadn’t paid the license tax to keep their law licenses current. When reporters asked the State Bar why they hadn’t enforced the legal requirement to pay the tax, they answered, “Because we’re not a collection agency.”
There is little need to explain to any Texan why he cannot legally cut hair, sell insurance or even drive on the public road with an expired license but he can practice law with one. He already knows.
Nor is there any use trying to explain to lawyers why professional indiscipline contributes to their wretched reputation. Since they enjoy a monopoly on access to the courts and thereby access to legal rights, why should they care?