Ethics Rock!
posted by Protagonist | 8:35 PM 
Do you know why you pay lawyers $100s an hour to do what we do? Because to keep our law licenses, we have to attend crap like this.
If the day ever comes when I have to choose between losing my law license and listening to a song about proper courtroom demeanor to the tune of “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”, I'd have to think long and hard.
Luckily, that's not the only Ethics entertainment CLE you can take. A little more bearable is this dramatic interpretation of Thomas More. That is, unless you're a divorce lawyer.
If the day ever comes when I have to choose between losing my law license and listening to a song about proper courtroom demeanor to the tune of “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”, I'd have to think long and hard.
Luckily, that's not the only Ethics entertainment CLE you can take. A little more bearable is this dramatic interpretation of Thomas More. That is, unless you're a divorce lawyer.
47 Comments:
Let me get this straight. You're a lawyer, and you want sympathy for putting up with shit?
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Seriously, do everyone else a favor and go die in a fire.
Linked to on fark.com... expect deluge of "die in a fire" insults from jobless/clueless in 5...4.. uh. Dammit. -1... -2...
If I had to choose.. I'd choose to go out like a 100% bad ass and kill everybody in the room.
Rock on
I've never been to an MCLE that was of any use. But since I'm at a state agency now and I get to waive MCLE's for our own 3 day training conference, I actually enjoy them more. But then again they spring for 3 days in a hotel and an open bar party the first night.
Cool blog, interesting stuff here.
How about this instead? I hope you get AIDS.
Cactus? Cactus? Cactus? Cactus! HAHA OMG PLA ROX!
Rest assured CME isn't much better. Seems like all training is like this, doesn't it?
For all you farkers, check out the bumper sticker contest below. $20 to the winner.
Die in a fire, etc...
I just can't believe they're charging $200 for something as embarrassing as that.
DIAF legal slug!
i dont really care how you die, but that is pretty lame... middle management exists even at the lawyerly level i suppose
My first thought was with sympathy. Probably because it was written with the prose of a lawyer, but as I looked at the commentary and thought "What have lawyers ever done for me?" And the answer was screw me out of freedom and money. I have to agree with the rest of these Farkers. DIAF. The earlier the better and if you can take a few of your friends, colleagues and enemies with you, the more the merrier.
O'Rly? I thought the high charges might have something to do with the fact that the bar (at least here in Missouri) lets lawyers set their own rates and the state legislature just happens to be full of Missouri lawyers and guess what. . .the lawmakers try to put a cap on doctor fees, etc, but not lawyers. Doctors have to put up with way more useless CME too . . . so accept it as a fact of life and STFU and GBTW.
You must really be a craptacular lawyer if you only charge $100/hour.
These aren't all 60s songs. So in addition to being incredibly lame the architect of this didn't do very good research. Glad he isn't my lawyer.
Hey I may be clueless, but I'm not jobless.
So you think you deserve $100+/hour because you have to listen to stupid people's misguided attempts to "make this stuff fun". Look at the crap teachers put up with and they make no where near that.
My eight year old whines better than you do, and makes a better case. There are people who clean the excrement out of port-a-potties for a living. If you're job is so bad, go try that for a while.
Your "About this site section" says you're attempting to 'add unique content to the 'net' not readily found elsewhere'.
Sorry, whiney privledged people are everwhere on the 'net', you've failed.
Unlike my fellow farkers I respect your annoyance at the demeaning method of ethics presentation you must endure to keep your liscene. I understand the concept of working extremely hard to get somewhere in a profession you can feel good about and how the expectation to sit down and calmy be treated like a kindergardener rankles. The whole situation remainds me of similar things that I was expected to do at my own university that I simply refused to do; fortunately I was in no danger of loosing anything by walking away.
I think what is worse though is the actual need to parade some grown people into a room and teach them about right and wrong. It is necessary in some cases, as you may have seen in your work. I do not understand how someone unethical could get through law school and pass the bar exam. This is probably my own lack of experience speaking.
Good luck in tolerating the "ethics seminars" and I hope the people in charge of them remember they are speaking to profession adults and not a gathering of romperroom rejects. I also hope you remember there was a sympathetic ear, or in this case sympathetic set of eyes.
whiney privledged people are everwhere on the 'net'
You've been everwhere on the "'net"?
Did you get the t-shirt?
"I been everwhere on the net, and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. And squirrel porn."
"Hey I may be clueless, but I'm not jobless."
The first is permanent. The second, inevitable.
Yeah, I want fries with that.
lets lawyers set their own rates
ZOMFG TEH FREE MARKETS!!11 OH NOES
I'm standing in the corner all by my lonesome here because these are CLE classes I would sign up for if they were offered in my locale. I think I would find them to be extremely entertaining, in a sick and twisted way. Then again I make $350/hr.
I, for one, appreciate your humor regarding CLE's. As for the issue of fee rates, my experience is that a client does not appreciate the work a lawyer does until he tries to do it himself and fails miserably in the process. I often think to myself, "why didn't you come to a lawyer first BEFORE lighting the stick of dynamite." Oh, and I love the quotes from the Nuts of Old.
Nobody except crap lawyers attend these stupid seminars in VA. If you work in a big firm, you get your hours at the firm. If you don't, and you have a brain, you do the online stuff -- hit play and mute. Easy as pie. CLE is the biggest scam in America. Bar associations getting rich off making their lawyers sit through crap or pay their way out of it.
I think that learning by song is a great idea. Some other applications: New Orleans orientation video for volunteer workers featuring 'when the levee breaks' by zepplin. A sexual harrasment for the workplace video featuring 'i like big butts'. And a stress management video for postal workers featuring 'let the bodies hit the floor' and a megadeth montage.
RE:Anonymous,
"Unlike my fellow farkers I respect your annoyance"
If you are going to put yourself out there as a respectful and educated Farker. Please do Drew and the rest us a favor and learn to spell! You have a computer, can't you use spell check?
"If you are going to put yourself out there as a respectful and educated Farker. Please do Drew and the rest us a favor and learn to spell! You have a computer, can't you use spell check?"
That's interesting... In the post you referred to, I counted 2 spelling errors in three paragraphs of text. In your post, I counted 2 punctuation errors in about three lines of text. Hmm.
Grammer Nazi smackdown to ensue.
Booyah!
William F. Buckley RAWKS
Thomas Sowel RAWKS HARD
Walter "The Man" Williams is the sweetest dude since shaft.
/conservifarker
Here are two words for you post nazis to sweat over:
Irony: Lawyers complaining about being charged outrageous fees by a group of people that would be completely unnecessary were there no lawyers in the first place
Oxymoron: Lawyers and Ethics
Die in a fire, indeed... Do the gene pool a favor, blood sucker: get neutered. I recommend the "playing in traffic" method of sterilization.
"That's interesting... In the post you referred to, I counted 2 spelling errors in three paragraphs of text. In your post, I counted 2 punctuation errors in about three lines of text. Hmm."
You missed 3 punctuation errors in the first comment you're speaking about.
i happen to like my lawyer. everybody acts like /all/ lawyers are blood-sucking leeches. mine keeps my white ass out of jail. yah i've had lawyers i hated before: the ones who /lost/.
I guess I'll leave my Die in a Fire commment as well.
Screw "die in a fire". Where's the fun in that? How about death by paper cuts? I feel that is much more appropriate considering the mounds of paperwork that one has to go through over the course of a legal proceeding.
Granted we want them finished off quickly and before they spawn offspring, I think we owe them a more painful removal from the gene pool, considering they brought us the "My coffee was served to me too hot, set me up for life" crap we're dealing with now.
It's time for us to evolve from "die in a fire" to "death by paper cuts". Farkers, who's with me?
(Spelling and grammar approved in this posting by Bill Gates Microsoft Word 2003)
Duane.
Before anyone jumps on my ass for spacing, I used proper spacing (two spaces after a period, one after a comma) in the previous post, but this post editor removed them.
Duane.
(Spelling, grammar and spacing approved in this posting by Bill Gates Microsoft Word 2003)
I hope he doesn't die in a fire. I hope you turn into a vegetable like Terri Schiavo.
I am shocked and appalled at the absurdity of this blog. If you had not known by now that 90% of life is dealing with other people’s bull-excrement, you barely deserve a minute fraction of your hourly fee. I do suppose as a person of legal profession you have done more giving than receiving in the bull-excrement area, so you might have less experience with it than others might, but still, the shock and disgust at your inanity are things to register. Good choice of quotes on the sidebar though…
(Spelling and grammar approved in this posting by Bill Gates' Microsoft Word 2003)
Let me get this straight: The author of this is an attorney: a member of a profession which makes a living through inciting conflicts between people and then charging them enormous sums of money to represent them in those conflicts. In my eyes, by the way, that's the legal equivalent of a protection racket: "Nice rights ya got there; it would be a shame if anything happened to them." Now, this author -- this attorney -- whose profession is largely responsible for all the rest of us living in fear that something we say, or do, or don't do, no matter how innocently, will open us up to total financial ruin of a level that could not be imposed for a serious crime, is complaining about having to study ethics. Complaining more, apparently, because one of the options open to him involves rather silly songs.
You, Protagonist, might see yourself as earning many "certificates of value" because you serve your fellow man so well. The rest of us, however, see your profession as legalized extortionists. The real need for lawyers is for protection against other lawyers. In that sense, you are very much like pimps who justify claiming the bulk of the money their girls earn because of the "service" they provide: protection from other pimps.
I too am a Farker. However, I do not want you to die in a fire. If you did, no doubt your heirs would sue the company that manufactured the matches to start it, the store that sold them, and any other deep pockets they could find, and the eventual costs of their enrichment would be borne by those who always bear them: me and my fellow citizens and taxpayers. No, I want you to grow a conscience and a set of ethics, and recognize that there are other measures of value than how much money you can extort from the helpless and desperate. Also, I want you to quit whining. I think I hear the whaaaaaambulance pulling up at your door.
Expire in a conflagration.
You couldn't be more wrong. That's like saying cops are responsible for crime. It's plaintiff's lawyers that instill fear in people, but the root problem is the law.
Actually the root problem is people. People are the reason there is conflict with other people. Lawyers are just the hitmen that people hire to do damage to others. Some are good, some are bad, and all of them need to keep ethics in mind. Its too easy for professional competitors to fall into the trap that victory is worthy any ethical price.
Actually i want to know where i can find a copy of those song parodies. They have to be hilarious.
/not a lawyer
//just a goon
Go die in a fire, please.
/Lawyers add to erosion of personal Accountability/Responsibilty in the States
//Coffee was too hot
Nice blog here.
As a fellow esq., I'm a bit puzzled by your complaint. Normally, lawyers (ESPECIALLY conservative lawyers) complain endlessly about having to go to ethics and bias CLEs where they get preached at for not having a specific firm policy empowering transgendered Hispanic left-handed mutes. Here, your local bar association has done you the favor of allowing you to earn your credits in a manner you can easily ignore and which also sub silento demeans and discredits the entire ethics/bias CLE process. It would seem to be to be a double winner for you.
Also, allow me to shameless plug another Blogspot blog (one to which I contribute): Ryan the Angry Midget and Friends. I doubt you'll find that you are politically aligned with most of us, but I suspect you'll still enjoy it. And, you have the opportunity to become the first intelligent conservatives to ever post a comment to the Blog.
Everyone hates lawyers... until they need one. Then they DEMAND the best lawyer out there. But they don't want to pay for one. Especially if they are being wrongfully accused of being liable or guilty. They feel the lawyers are there to take their money away. A biiiiiiig conspiracy.
Listen up zipperheads. I am a lawyer. I deal with you morons all the time. You hate lawyers. But you need us. Because you all screw up. Constantly. We are here to prosecute your screw-ups and defend your screw-ups (even if you really, truly did them!).
So, unless you want the system of everyone beating the hell out of each other as a means of accomplishing justice, sit down, shut up and let us do our jobs.
That said, being a lawyer, I can tell you first hand that most lawyers are absolute jerks that don't give a damn about their client and only care about the money they will get from them. My advice (not legally speaking but as a friend), don't hire lawyers like that. Duh!
It's plaintiff's lawyers that instill fear in people, but the root problem is the law. The legislators who pass asinine discrimination statutes....
And who are those legislators who make those laws? Most of them started out as lawyers. When they finally get voted out of office, they go back to being lawyers. They've got a vested interest in passing incomprehensible laws that require a lawyer to decode and which generate work for more lawyers in their enforcement. It is also lawyers who have taught us that any mishap is not just an accident, any slight is not just words, but anything bad that happens to us raises us to the exalted status of "victim" and entitles us to immense sums of money. When personal responsibility surrendered, a lawyer wa there.
As for "Anonymous" above me ... well, you are precisely what's wrong with the legal profession. "Screwing up" should not be punished with bankruptcy. And a hell of a lot of the time, the "screwing up" in question is on the part of the plaintiff. Random example: A number of years ago, when I lived in the LA area, I knew an elderly lady who owned some property in northern California. She leased it to her son for $1 a year. Her son owned a cougar. The kind with fur, not wheels. He kept it in a cage on that property, with a large sign saying that it was dangerous and should not be approached. Some woman -- an acquaintance of an acquaintance -- had heard about the cougar and wanted to see it. He turned her away at the gate (the land was fenced) and would not let her on his property. She came back later, climbed over the fence, found the cougar cage, and stuck her arm through the bars. She only got part of it back. (so much for petting the nice kitty) Despite the fact that she was trespassing after having been explicitly told she was not permitted on the property, despite the fact that she had to climb over one fence and reach through another, and despite the fact that she had been warned of the probable results of her action, this became someone else's fault, not hers. She wasn't suing the guy who owned the cougar, mind you -- he had nothing, that's why he was living on a trailer off in the boonies on his mom's property. Her lawyer looked around and discovered that the owner of the property, the elderly woman I knew, had some assets. That land, etc. So that's who the "victim" (of her own stupidity) and the lawyer went after. And, most likely, won against. (I left the area before it was resolved)
How did that elderly lady "screw up"? By not hiring safety inspectors to make sure that her son had removed all possible risks to anyone, no matter how dumb that person might be? By not hiring security guards to patrol the place so that some retard couldn't climb over the fence after being thrown off the property once already and go do something incredibly stupid? Only one person "screwed up" there, and that was the "victim".
Even if she somehow won, the elderly lady who owned that property still lost. I found out about the case when I noticed her falling apart from stress. She was not in the best of health to begin with, and this undoubtedly shortened her life. She had to spend her retirement savings to hire a lawyer to defend herself against this money grab by an idiot. And, being a good person, she felt bad for the idiot in question, even though everything that happened to the idiot was said idiot's own fault. Even if the lady in question won, she was still out the money. She had still suffered through the case. And she had no recourse at all against the person who started this in the first place. The idiot? Well, her lawyer was undoubtedly some ambulance-chaser working on contingency, so there was no risk to her at all. She had nothing to lose, and the truly innocent victim had nothing to win.
Three things that might help with this tidal wave of groundless litigation -- but could never be passed into law because our legislators are, by and large, lawyers:
1) Punitive damages should not be given to the plaintiff or their lawyer, any more than the victim in a criminal case is given any fines paid. The plaintiff should get compensatory damages only, and any punitive damages should go elsewhere. Perhaps into a fund to cover compensatory damages in cases where they are awarded but the defendant has no assets to pay.
2) In contingency fee cases, if the plaintiff loses, their attorney should be personally responsible for the reasonable legal costs of the defendant. That right there would put a damper on an awful lot of ambulance chasing. It would give the truly innocent victims (such as the elderly lady in my story there) some hope that they're not in a completely lose-lose situation.
3) Get rid of "pain and suffering" and its many variants. What's even worse is "pain and suffering" second-hand: Someone dies in an automobile crash, let's say, and their relatives (and their lawyers) seek millions of dollars as "compensation" for whatever suffering the person who is now dead (and hence unable to suffer) endured in the moments before their death. If I suffer, why should that entitle my spouse, or my estranged mother, to become a multi-millionaire?
We used to laugh at primitive societies who believed in witches and sorcerors. They believed that nothing bad ever happens by chance. There was always someone guilty -- a witch -- and the witch-finders had to be called out to identify and punish that person. But we have our own witch-finders now. We just call them "lawyers" instead.
Lawyers are the enemies of personal responsibility, of truth, of justice, and of honor. And only a lawyer would say those old-fashioned concepts don't matter at all.
"Lawyers are the enemies of personal responsibility, of truth, of justice, and of honor."
They are also the enemies of underarm deodorant, of pirate hats, and of teabags. Inspiration of long-winded hyperbolic pointlessness and anecdotal musings of an entirely unexceptional nature! Devourer of small buildings, scourge of the Rio-Grande! Lawyers cause small children to tremble in fear and scream into the night!
They must be stopped. STOPPED, I tell you, and if commenting on their blogs won't do it, then I fail to understand what will. Also, I fail to understand foreign films on a fairly regular basis, but that is NOT the point. The point is that I knew this woman one time who suffered incredible facial disfigurement from chasing parked ambulances and SHE hired an attorney with little or no scruples, or hair for that matter. Where is that lawyer now, I ask you? Who knows! That's the point!
There are two things that could help with this tempest of baseless subjugation of personal hygiene products, but will they be adopted by the constabulary? Not likely.
Thing the First: All lawyers should be henceforth described by the term "Fortenbra". Attorney, esq, barrister, solicitor, lawyer... how many stinking names do they need, anyway. MADNESS, I tell you.
Thing the Second: In pro-bono cases, all Fortenbras must wear kilts.
Thing the Third: Abolish pain and suffering. That will allow others to read through this and the preceding rant from beginning to end with no noticeable emotional affect whatsoever! (Wouldn't that be nice?)
Thing the Fourth There is NO ... thing the fourth.
We should be laughing at primitive societies without witches or sorcerers to burn. Without clean fuels such as these, it is doubtful they will ever truly throw off the mantle of "third world crap puddle" and join us at the table of "first world crappers".
Obviously with their built-in witch detectors, Fortenbras make formidable foes and care little for such things.
obligatory DIAF
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