Law firms' woes likely to last

It's truly comical the rage "Very Angry Wife" has against people who have the "gall" and the "nerve" to tell the truth about lawyers and the legal profession.

And in fact I am confident that if she had been married to Bill Lerach, Melvyn Weiss, Dickie Scruggs, Eddie Vrdolyak, Stuart Levine, or any similar pillars of the legal profession, and we had been having this discussion five years ago rather than now, in other words before the evidence was finally made public that proved they had been for years involved in bribery, and will cause all of those common criminals hiding behind law licenses to be sent to prison, she would have been just as enraged that anyone had had the gall to insult her husband or her husband's profession.

So her husband works long hours and works hard, also donates a certain amount of momey to charity, and therefore she thinks we should respect him. If those are the only rules for "proving" that someone is respectable, by that standard we should also respect Bernard Madoff, some of the highest ranking guys at Enron, Al Capone, Pablo Escobar, and some of the biggest international drug traffickers.

In a lot of cities and counties the way the legal system works, and especially in the bigger cases, is one or more of the lawyers involved in the case has a secret and off the record meeting with the judge before any courtroom hearings, and in which under the table bribes are exchanged and the case is then secretly choreographed and scripted and the decision is actually arranged in advance, but then so as to put on a good show for the public and a gullible media, they have the official trial and in which the judge pretends to consider the evidence.

Did "Very Angry Wife" ever hear about Greylord and the lawyers and judges who went to prison over those bribery and illegal backroom fixes schemes!! And of course Greylord did not catch all of the crooked lawyers and judges but in fact less than one percent of them.

nadineannette wrote:

Kirkland should look at their power lawyers Singer getting almost a million dollars for his representation of United Airlines. Support staff get in the 6 figures for putting up with the attorneys. If Kirkland represents you think about another firm like Gould & Ratner. They are outstanding and reasonable. Take it from a client who has been to both

Funny you say that. I joined Kirkland & Ellis, LLP IT department in several years ago. All I'm going to say is I will NEVER work in IT for a corporate law firm again.

BTW, if your wondering where all the overpriced, arrogant and incompetent Arthur Andersen IT staff went to after AA went under look no further than K&E.

Mark Winshel wrote:

Concerning the assertion of C Broski (#163) that the legal profession has no higher a number of shady characters than any other profession, I have known four lawyers that were decent human beings and many times more who were much lower than pond scum. In fact, the easiest way for a lawyer to make a lot of money is not to be smart but to be sleazy.
Some examples of lawyers' "standards." It was two lawyers, specifically Willie Brown and San Francisco mayor George Moscone, who were far and away the strongest supporters of Jim Jones (later of Jonestown Massacre fame) and who kept on supporting him and defending him when some started to have doubts about Jones. Without the support of lawyers WB and Moscone, the Jonestown Massacre might not have occurred, and even if it had there would have been drastically fewer people in Jonestown to be massacred, since WB and Moscone did everything in their power to protect Jones' reputation by continuing to defend him and viciously attacking his critics and therefore keeping gullible persons' faith in Jim Jones.
Some other examples of the "standards" of lawyers are: one, Vrdolyak and Stuart Levine; two, Detroit's Kwame Kilpatrick and the lawyers on the city of Detroit's payroll who arranged the payment of an eight million dollar bribe of taxpayers' money in an attempt to keep the truth from coming out; three, the shenanigan's of PA's Vince Fumo and some of the other lawyers who were his co conspirators; four, Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, and Blagojevich; and five, Jimmy Walker of Tammany Hall fame.
And of course the lawyers who arranged pardons for Marc Rich and Isaac Toussie could always give us a good laugh by insisting they arranged those pardons by practicing law and not by arranging sleazy fixes.

Are you really blaming the Jonestown tragedy on lawyers?

Rogue Zebra wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes, she burned herself, but what nutcase puts coffee between her legs and drives away from the drive through. This woman needed to use some COMMON SENSE. The Americans are the laughing stock of Europe because of our frivolous lawsuits such as this - we lived there and they talked about this kind of stuff all of the time. Take responsibility for your own actions, even if they are really stupid ones - this woman did not do that. I don't drink coffee, but I know that it is very hot and I know that it should never be stuck between my legs, especially when driving. Why should McDonald's or any other restaurant have to put a warning on coffee saying "this may be hot"? Isn't it obvious? Just because a jury sided with her doesn't make it correct and responsible - I am sure they were seeing dollar signs also.

The rest of the story:
After all of the appeals were completed, the woman had the award reduced to around $600,000 (and she was abole to keep about $400,000. The appeals reduced the verdict significantly. Would you want to be permanently disfigured for this amount of money?

finally, the judgement was not predicated on the fact that the woman was not warned that hot coffee will burn you, but rather on the fact that McDonald's coffee was served much hotter than most coffee. When you spill coffee on yourself, you would expect some discomfort, BUT NOT 3RD DEGREE BURNS FROM COFFEE THAT IS SERVED ONLY A FEW DEGREES COOLER THAN THE POILING POINT. As a result of the trial, McDonalds stopped serving scalding hot coffee and began to serve it at normal temperatures (like everywhere else) that do not cuase life-threatening injuries when it is spilled.

People only listen to the parts of thsi story that supports their preconceived notions and ignore the rest of the story that is inconvenient.

BLAME GAMER NOT wrote:

A Los Angeles attorney sued another attorney who had hung a cardboard tombstone in his office that read, "R.I.P./Jerry Garcia (a few too many parties perhaps?)."
The plaintiff lawyer, a Garcia groupie, alleged this joke caused him "humiliation, mental anguish, and emotional and physical distress" after seeing the sign. He further added that he had suffered injury to his mind and body (specifics were not listed in the suit).(Source: CALA)

AND - it is black letter law that a plaintiff cannot recover emotional damages for this kind of case and that this case is an urban legend.

Conspiracy Man wrote:

<quoted text>
The rest of the story:
After all of the appeals were completed, the woman had the award reduced to around $600,000 (and she was abole to keep about $400,000. The appeals reduced the verdict significantly. Would you want to be permanently disfigured for this amount of money?
finally, the judgement was not predicated on the fact that the woman was not warned that hot coffee will burn you, but rather on the fact that McDonald's coffee was served much hotter than most coffee. When you spill coffee on yourself, you would expect some discomfort, BUT NOT 3RD DEGREE BURNS FROM COFFEE THAT IS SERVED ONLY A FEW DEGREES COOLER THAN THE POILING POINT. As a result of the trial, McDonalds stopped serving scalding hot coffee and began to serve it at normal temperatures (like everywhere else) that do not cuase life-threatening injuries when it is spilled.
People only listen to the parts of thsi story that supports their preconceived notions and ignore the rest of the story that is inconvenient.

You are pretty close on the facts. A judge eventually reduced the verdict to $480,000. Here is a link to a website with plenty of details uncovered during discovery.

http://www.vanosteen.com/mcdonalds-coffee-law...

JimmyO wrote:

<quoted text> You are pretty close on the facts. A judge eventually reduced the verdict to $480,000. Here is a link to a website with plenty of details uncovered during discovery.
http://www.vanosteen.com/mcdonalds-coffee-law...

I knew that it had been reduced, but I was not sure exactly how much had been removed from the award. When all was said and done, I doubt that any of the people who use this case as the poster child for runaway verdicts would ever want to trade places with the woman. After all of her legal fees, she probably received around $320K (I do not know if her medical costs were paid through the award or not). I doubt any of the people who trumpet about this case would just say "oops, I guess I should have not spilled that coffee on myself" and undergo all of the painful medical procedures without expecting compensation if this happened to them. Nobody expects to have their lap disfigured by third degree burns when they spill a cup of coffee on themself. Nobody expects coffee to be near a boiling temperature. This case is actually an example of what is good about our judicial system.

Dont get it wrote:

I can't understand how a firm like Latham would rather cut/freeze associate salaries, making the young attorneys pay for the economic slowdown, while the profits per partner increase/stay the same. The new associates with law school debt and working huge hours are the ones who can least afford it, yet the greedy partners already making ~2m per partner per year push it off on someone else. I am sure they work hard too, but it doesn't look fair to me.

And that's exactly why you're not a partner. You don't understand. If you think PPP at a firm like Latham increased or stayed the same in 2008, you are smoking something.

Greg from Chicago says "Without lawyers, business would not function. Without business, the economy gets even worse." This kind of self-important drivel is what makes people view big firm lawyers as the trough-eating swine that they very often are. Give me a break. Finally, even the big-time clients are seeing these large firms as money pits, and ending the mindless gluttony.