Last Updated on: 23rd December 2019, 05:03 pm
I have said time and time again that I love Snopes for their ability to thoroughly debunk hoaxes. But I read something from their site that completely disappointed me. I have to wonder which one of them is a lawyer, or if they have lawyers in their family. How else canyou explain this? They make a lot of good points about lawyers being cold and dispassionate and costing a lot of dough, but they miss a big point, something that the folks at Snopes are not known to do. We think of lawyers as scum because…well…there are a lot of scummy lawyers to think of.
Sure, there are good lawyers out there, and we need folks in the legal profession, but the good ones get buried by the less than scrupulous ones. What else do you call the lawyer who blamed the passengers of a doomed flight for their own fate just because they got on the plane? That isn’t looking at things in the best possible light. that isn’t using the law with skill. that is having no principles and doing whatever is required to keep his client’s money rolling in. That is a scummy lawyer.
Need more? what do you call MinChen’s defense lawyer for trying to sey he needs leniency because he didn’t mean to smother Cecilia Zhang to death while kidnapping her? I don’t know about you, but I call him scum.
Want something more recent? How about the class action suit filed against Mapleleaf Foods before the investigation is complete? And have you ever noticed that in a lot of cases, when class action suits are filed, the clients, ya know, the ones who need the money, get hardly anything, and the lawyers collect millions? Yeah, that isn’t scummy at all.
If that isn’t enough, here’s some personal experience. Years ago, when I was a little more naive, I was having some difficulties with some government stuff. I knew others felt the same, so I posted something on a website about it. All I wanted were others to write letters, perhaps join me, maybe we could pool ideas on how best to deal with this.
Before long, I got a very convincing email from someone saying he knew a lot about this stuff and could help me. I was excited! After talking to me for a while, he told me he was a lawyer. This made me choke. I didn’t want a lawyer. I couldn’t afford a lawyer. This was not what I wanted at all.
He managed to calm me down, and said that because he felt that this case was important, he would offer his services for free. I thought ok, well maybe this was ok. But as soon as things got remotely complicated, rates appeared, and contact went way down. The next time I heard from him was when his office sent me a christmas card complete with retainer rates. We never spoke again. Now, if that isn’t scummy, I don’t know what is.
So, what love affair do the Snopes folks have with lawyers? Someone please explain this one to me.