Ever hear the term civil litigation? Basically its meant to distinguish non-criminal cases. It certainly doesn't characterize the behavior of the lawyers involved (or, usually, the litigants themselves either, but that seems more to be expected, doesn't it?) Lawyers are supposed to be like athletes-- go out there, give it your damndest, within the bounds of good sportsmanship, and shake hands after the game. In fact, there's even a set of disciplinary rules and canons of ethics that provide that lawyers are supposed to comport themselves in a civil, dignified manner. Hah!
Civil litigation is what I used to do for a living, and it was rarely civil. Law seems to attract people who like to make other people's lives gratuitously miserable. Clients I excuse for the most part, because if they need a lawyer, their lives are falling apart around them, and some snarky behavior seems understandable. However, the blowhards and assholes who will give you seven kinds of hell over an adjournment, and then simply blow off deadlines and get matters automatically postponed by the court, while costing you time answering a court appearance at a motion calander call which they never appear for, are the sort of people who cause workplace violence. And the law is rife with this type of character. The small minded tyrannically inclined twit who busts other people's balls for the sheer joy of making a nuisance of himself, of provoking a reaction, is the character most often missing from TV shows that romanticize law practice.
I have been unfortunate enough, as a result of The Accident, to also participate in the judicial process from the perspective of litigant/client, and its no small wonder Shakespeare said "First, let's kill all the lawyers." I have been screwed royally by two sets of worker's comp lawyers; scared out of the office of a social security disability shop that advertises how helpful they are all over network television, but whose local office not only inspires zero confidance because of the rampant unprofessional behavior, but is also guilty of the very great sin of repeatedly wasting my precious time; and have been forced to deal with the button-pushing mania of one lawyer who is also a close personal friend, but seems to get off on provoking a reaction way too much for my sanity, all in the name of playing devil's advocate.
Devil's advocate -- Now there's an expression I can relate to!
And in keeping therewith, here are some definitions from Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary", about my former profession and current nightmare:
APPEAL, v.t.
In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
COMPROMISE, n.
Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
COURT FOOL, n.
The plaintiff.
INJUSTICE, n.
A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.
JUSTICE, n.
A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
LAW, n.
Once Law was sitting on the bench,
And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
Nor come before me creeping.
Upon your knees if you appear,
'Tis plain your have no standing here."
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
"Your status? -- devil seize you!"
"Amica curiae," she replied --
"Friend of the court, so please you."
"Begone!" he shouted -- "there's the door --
I never saw your face before!"
G.J.
LAWFUL, adj.
Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.
LAWYER, n.
One skilled in circumvention of the law.
LIAR, n.
A lawyer with a roving commission.
LITIGANT, n.
A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
LITIGATION, n.
A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
PRECEDENT, n.
In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.
REDRESS, n.
Reparation without satisfaction.
Among the Anglo-Saxon a subject conceiving himself wronged by the king was permitted, on proving his injury, to beat a brazen image of the royal offender with a switch that was afterward applied to his own naked back. The latter rite was performed by the public hangman, and it assured moderation in the plaintiff's choice of a switch.
TECHNICALITY, n.
In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his neighbor of murder. His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder." The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an inference.
TRIAL, n.
A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it is necessary to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the defendant, the prisoner, or the accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently clear this person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly arrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public executioner. Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued in contumaciam the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a street of Toledo, some pigs that had wickedly run between the viceroy's legs, upsetting him, were arrested on a warrant, tried and punished. In Naples and ass was condemned to be burned at the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been executed. D'Addosio relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks, dogs, goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their conduct and morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches infesting some ponds about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the faculty of Heidelberg University, directed that some of "the aquatic worms" be brought before the local magistracy. This was done and the leeches, both present and absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested within three days on pain of incurring "the malediction of God." In the voluminous records of this cause celebre nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable jurisdiction.
Here endeth the rant for today.
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