As readers may recall (Dec. 9), Connecticut attorney Norm Pattis has lately written a series of powerful commentaries at Crime and Federalism suggesting that some of his fellow plaintiff’s attorneys are too often tempted to take on the causes of vengeful, deluded or disturbed complainants, especially during “the periodic lull in cases of merit”; he further argued that society’s interest calls for strong measures against the filing of meritless cases. It seems, however, that these commentaries have not sat well with many of his colleagues. On Dec. 20 Pattis described one wave of reaction:
The other day, a newspaper called to ask for permission to run an old item. I granted permission, and now my email box is replete with messages from new readers, in this instance members of the plaintiff’s bar, not at all happy that I wrote about my sense that not all cases have merit.
And three days later (Dec. 23) he has further thoughts in response to being verbally pummeled on a listserv of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association:
…All I am saying is that a significant percentage of plaintiffs bring deep-seated psychological injury to their cases that is not caused by a defendant’s misconduct, and these clients transfer all their anger and disappointment onto the first available target, whether it be defendant or lawyer. I suspect any lawyer practicing more than a couple of years can draw this distinction with ease.
Was I suggesting that defendants are somehow devoid of the same sociopathy? Not at all. I suspect many defendants are disturbed as well. But there is a crucial difference — the defendant did not choose to be in court….
I haven’t lost the will and zeal to fight, far from it. But I do get to choose not to become more than the blunt instrument of those clients whose cases lack merit, and whose psyches bring nothing but hatred and rage to a courtroom.