Give a Lawyer a Hug and not Hate
Shakespeare once famously declared that we should kill all the lawyers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Shakespeare after all was an author of fiction. Now, more than ever, it is easy and convenient to bury lawyers and blame them for all the ills of society. The most cited reasons for the societal disdain of the legal profession includes greed, manipulation and over absorption in technical minutia. Tort reform, regulation and deportation are cited as solutions. Putting history and politics aside, let’s look at reality and why you and society really need a lawyer.
As a practicing Miami lawyer, let me point out some facts as to lawyers that you may not have considered. First, the judicial branch of the United States is a co-equal partner with the executive and legislative branches. Through our country’s system of checks and balances, each branch depends upon the other to ensure our society evolves and is governed properly under the Constitution. A society without an independent and functioning judicial branch will allow an overzealous executive or legislative branch to run rampant in law making which in turn could destroy your personal liberties. The judicial branch is the master of laws by interpreting those very laws and either enforcing or invalidating the same. The judicial branch is comprised of judges who were legally trained as lawyers. The practitioners in the judicial branch are almost exclusively lawyers and judges. To eliminate all the lawyers will in effect eliminate all the judges and so to the checks and balances of the judicial branch.
Drilling deeper and on a more pragmatic level, lawyers are necessary to be your champion and advocate in a civilized society. Without the rule of law and the lawyers that toil in that arena, we would be left to a system of might equals right, survival of the fittest and true social Darwinism. Over a Court and Jury, would you really prefer to resolve your legal issues by the sword or a duel to the death? While no creation of man can be entirely perfect, at least a dispute resolution system involving neutral arbiters of justice who rely upon fact and reason is superior to that which relies upon brute force and the luck of the draw. That being said, a legal system requires certain rules and procedures so the contest can be fair. Those responsible for knowing the rules and procedures for our legal system are the lawyers and the judges. If you truly want to eliminate all the lawyers, are you prepared as a society to have each citizen be his or her own advocate and to be responsible for knowing all the rules and procedures of the legal system? Even if you thought for a minute that being your own lawyer was a good idea, how would ensure fairness in the legal system for those of lower abilities or with disabilities that could not undertake such a task?
The last point brings me to the final point. Lawyers in our society level the playing field for everyone to have an equal opportunity to be heard when there is a dispute. This is exactly how a grieving widow can seek justice against a major airline when that airline failed to properly maintain it’s own plane which in turned crashed and killed her husband. How else would the widow champion her cause against an enormous company? Without lawyers, the company could hire the best and brightest intellects and give them nothing to do other than to study and prepare for legal disputes and then appoint those persons to defend the claim. Meanwhile, you would have to expect the widow to either have the existing knowledge and skills to combat those intellectuals for her claim or to get herself ready to do so while still grieving. I would go out on the limb and state such a contest would hardly be fair.
So what we have left is a legal system in which people and companies hire their legal mercenaries to do battle in a court of justice. No system can ever be perfect and not all results are necessarily fair. Naturally those with more resources can hire more and better mercenaries than those without the same resources. But the point of the legal system is not that the “results” be equal but that the contestants be afforded an equal “opportunity” to be heard. What happens after that when a jury deliberates is what makes legal cases fascinating and riveting. As I look at it, lawyers are part of the solution and not the problem.
