The author is a lawyer. Sometimes.
There is a huge gulf between the public perception of the legal system in the US and its reality. In public perception, injured people get outrageously high monetary awards and criminal defendants are coddled or acquitted.
The reality is that injured people and criminal defendants get screwed. It happens so much, so often, so egregiously that many lawyers would simply quit if they knew what else to do.
Many blogs are documenting and chronicling this state of affairs. They rightly point to the problems – largely unfair judging – and the impotence of lawyers’ organizations, such as bar associations, in addressing these systemic concerns.
No one, to the author’s knowledge, has suggested strategic or tactical strikes by attorneys to deprive misbehaving judges of their veneer of legitimacy when they deserve it.
The idea of this blog is to function as a clearing house of the most egregious and harmful judicial abuses and select specific instances, and judges, for a targeted boycott – a strike – by attorneys. Unfair judges operate because, to some degree, we help them when we continue participating as if nothing is wrong.
Like it or not, for the most part judges respond to power, not argument, not evidence, and not truth. Disfavored litigants like criminal defendants and personal injury plaintiffs are relatively powerless individually and within the system, and so are their attorneys.
The question is whether there is some other way to bring the scales back into balance, or at least move in that direction. This blog is an effort to do that. Rather than just point out or complain – although that is a valuable contribution – the focus here is on action.
Lawyers have the intelligence to see the problem. Do they have the courage to address it? The author hopes to find out.
If you know of any judges who merit attention by this blog, send an email to strikelawyer@gmail.com. Lawyers only, please.
Update: As of December 8, 2011, the blog has evolved and is evolving. Whereas I started writing under a pseudonym, I’ve now disclosed my real name and developed what was probably always the real purpose of the blog, such as it is. You can read beginning with these two posts and many of those following:
Lawyers on Strike 
Send the information to strikelawyer@gmail.com.
Please indicate whether you are a lawyer, where you practice and any way I can verify that information.
I’ll look at what you send. Thanks for the interest.
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Why just lawyers…this offends me. Dirty corrupt judges should be exposed by all. I have a case similar to the one you have defended. Dirty Cops who raped my girlfriend. Internal affairs forcing us to settle the case after they arrested us on bogus charges of theft. Do you want to here more let me know. I am not a lawyer, but I am defending my case and position like one. Ask Norm Pattis, he will give you details.
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It appears true to me that judges act in accord with their prejudices and social attitudes, though they phrase their rulings so as to disguise this. This is a human trait – many professionals can do the same. Many prosecutors overcharge in order to get a plea deal on the charge that the facts support. Police are able to use the exact words in some published court decisions. Wonder if the prosecutor/s coached the police? Then again, there are some honest judges and prosecutors. Takes time to recognize them.
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Leaving aside prosecutors for the present, it’s considerably less nuanced. Judges, when they are not out and out perfidious, are moral weaklings, and they act on the crudest level of self interest. They side with the police all the time because it is in their interest to do so. It is never in their interest to otherwise. This is because the police have the power to visit negative political or career consequences upon judges and their opponents – the criminal defense bar – does not.
So this is the political reality. Well, we’re imperfect. We are all morally weak to some extent. Look at St. Peter.
The question then becomes, how far does this go? Will some commitment to principle or truth or the law kick in at some point and yield a contrary result? Can this ever happen?
So you get a case where the police have raped a girl at knife point and framed her for a crime she did not commit. They want her in prison. They’ve committed perjury and threatened witnesses and her lawyer. They will have their way on this no matter what, they’ve made that perfectly clear.
This is all proven, beyond a reasonable doubt and even admitted in court proceedings and the evidence is before the judges.
Will the judges finally put self interest aside and do their jobs, even now?
And the answer is no, they will not.
This can’t happen. This is the tail end of a slippery slope and the next stop is the abyss, not just for the particular client, although that is bad enough, but for everyone.
We put these people in these positions and drape them in robes because the job is important. Civilization under the rule of law is fragile. The people whose job it is to preserve that – and that means judges and lawyers – are not allowed to abandon their posts or to put self before everything else. They are human, and flawed, and self interested, true. Saintliness is never prevalent and it’s naive to believe otherwise. But there has to be a downside limit.
We fall short all the time, I know that well enough. But we cannot fall this short.
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Oh, you know what the next step is as well as I do. When the government is illegitimate and unfit to rule, as the Declaration of Independence says…
…of course I know as a lawyer you can’t actually say that. It’s coming, though, and you and I know it.
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DBOLLC
Wow!!! I just happened to find your site while looking for Bill Bonner’s article, and I am really impressed by your ideas and mission.
We at DBOLLC are not lawyers, and like much of the populace, have an innate distaste for the profession.
We will spread the word about your site and mission.
We wish you best
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