Is America’s Legal System Out-Of-Control?
July 11, 2017Lawyers remind a lot of people of steroid-fueled muscle builders who swoon over their bodies. Professional bodybuilders can’t get enough muscle to satisfy their egos, and lawyers can’t get enough money to appease their egos. The big question is when and why did the legal system have a nervous breakdown? And when did lawyers pass the line of decent behavior and become legal rock stars that demand an overpaying audience? The answers are more than two hundred years old. We can thank the British for passing their legal system down to us in brutal legal fashion. Lawyers have always been the foundation of the government. Almost all of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were lawyers.
The fact that from the Supreme Court on down, lawyers persecute the innocent, protect corruption, and feather the nests of the wealthy isn’t lost on the people who went through a difficult court case and lost. They didn’t lose because they had a weak case. They lost because one attorney did a legal checkmate type maneuver on the judge and jury. Court cases are more about attorney-to-attorney challenges that the quest to find the truth and prosecute and defend in a reasonable and just way. Lawyers are modern day Spartans who take no prisoners and defy the essence of truth in courtrooms.
But not all Lawyers are bottom feeders who live for the buck and retreat to a McMansion in a sleek Range Rover. Some lawyers believe in justice. They believe in giving clients their expertise for a reasonable price. The best lawyers are not the pushy lawyers with cringe-worthy TV ad campaigns. They are not the attorneys who avoid answering the question, “What percentage does a lawyer get in a settlement case?” The good lawyers play by the right rules. The superhero rules of truth, justice, and the American way.
Lawyers like California Lawyer Timothy J. Ryan and his associates play by those superhero rules. They work within the boundaries of fair play and complete disclosure. Ryan and associates and other law firms that have the client’s interest in mind before the money do exist. It is just hard to find them when you need them.
Citizens complain about lawyers. Complaining about lawyers is in our DNA. But this legal system is the one that stuck, back in the days of George Washington and Ben Franklin. We are the creators of our legal mess, and some people say the legal system is too far off the edge of real justice to be effective for the masses. The legal system is too skewed and distorted to be just.
But other people say the law is still the glory of a functioning society. And they say international law still protects human rights. Lawyers and doctors are the elite professionals that young people admire for what give back, not what they get. Law schools are higher learning centers that produce the lawyers who create noble legislature. And they believe the title “Judge” is the highest gift anyone in a democracy can receive.