Day #12 - Lawyers

Yeah, sure.  I've done stuff on lawyers, a plenty.  However, I'm more than happy to repeat, reiterate, recap and re-define my feelings on the matter.

As a student of Pre-Law, I've been able to take in quite a bit about the way a lawyer's (as well as a student's) mind works.  Now I almost wish I hadn't.  Let me give you a bit of insight as to what these people go through, in studying for the profession.

I attended a community college to do this, so really, I haven't truly experienced what most students of law do.  I did, however, practically live at the Drake University Law Library, during the course of this program, mostly because the community college didn't carry a sufficient law library, itself.  The field is highly competitive among the students at Drake, where the program is much more seriously taken.  They even have desks there, with reserved signs, where the part of them they leave there is quite visible.  It's my firm belief that these people eat, sleep, breath, drink and are intravenously fed the law.  I know this to be fact for at least the first year of the four or better years that they spend there.  They'd have to be.  I easily spent a third of MY life there, so they've gotta be there for at least half or better of their lives.

Again, they'd have to be.  First off, they have to learn an entire new language...and another half.  The legal dictionary they live by is easily as huge as the Mirriam-Webster's Unabridged.  That's one.  Then there's Latin.  That's the half.  And that's not the worst of it.

2nd, they have to understand every word, phrase and ideal of law.  3rd, and totally separate, they have to learn how to write the stuff.  Memos and briefs are the lawyer's bread and butter, and notating and annotation, their life's blood.  4th, they have to research, find, then analyze just about everything they're digesting.  This is NO easy task.  The area of law they wish to practice is a moot point, they have to learn ALL areas.  Then when you finish, you can juggle the choices.  That's after you take what's probably one of the hardest tests taken by anyone in college.  The Bar Exam.  If you plan to practice in one of our states, then you have to take the Bar test offered by that state.  If you plan to practice in 2 or more, you have to take each individual state's Bar exam, covering the laws of those states as well as your primary practice state.  If you plan to practice internationally....well, you get the picture, I'm sure.

Last but certainly not least, they have to know where to locate anything legally related, almost instantly, in order to properly research it.  Oh sure, some of it is computerized and organized in this fashion...but 85% of it is still in dusty volumes all over the country in humongous legal libraries.  The sheer volume of law in our country is all documented and categorized in treatises (books), periodicals, encyclopedias, dictionaries, law reviews, digests and other law collaborates.  And when asked, you have to know just which case the statute is quoted, on what page of what chapter in what section of the volume of the law collection or publication you have to lay your fingers on, or you're just screwed.  Up to this point is where I not only empathize, but sympathize with a lawyer-to-be's plight.  After that is where that sympathy ends, however.

I'm not sure what happens exactly between law student and lawyer.  I never got that far...nor did I care to.  Somewhere along the line, your soul is evidently ripped from your body.  Maybe the Bar Exam is meant to drive them mad; or quite possibly some Arch-Sorcerer, a representative from the Legal Branch of the Judicial Brethren of Contracts, arises from the depths of their fraternities and casts some evil spell on them as a reward for passing the same; or maybe they're forced to drink blood cursed by Kali-Mah, as their hearts are ripped from their chests by their personal shamen...I don't think I'd care to debate the issue.  But somehow, regardless of how straight they might have followed their paths during the course of their studies, or maybe went in with great and good intentions of doing charity pro bono work in their hometowns...they always come out on the other side as something other-worldly....and EVIL.  They come out of their dorms spouting their newly learned language (and a half) like it's the first one they learned as a child.  Evangelists are even envious of these former legal tenderfoots.  English, pushed away into the recesses of the back lower left lobe of their hippo-campuses, becomes a distant memory, and if you listen closely you can hear their parents weeping and sobbing loudly in the background at the lost innocence of the child they once knew, as they graduate.

Now they exhume the law, and everything it stands for.  They're now part of a secret society that no longer has to wonder about the complex system we Americans ought to understand, but don't, because we just don't belong.  This new being, this Law-Yer, he/she knows the secrets of the universe now...they've been baptized in the holy light of Legality.  We, as inferior "normal" citizens, are now doomed to roam in darkness for the rest of our days, because of the paths we chose in difference.

No, these newly-bred evildoers now serve the courts.  Everything they talk about, whether with their scribes the paralegals or the masters they serve, the Judges, or their equals in the salt mines, the opposing attorneys, is in tongues, and, since they no longer bear human resemblance, or sound like one either, when we ask for our lawyer, it's tough to decide, after listening to both sides, if they're helping us, or the other side.  All we can do now is completely put all of our faith in them to "try" and get us off the hook for what we've done, as well as empty our bank  accounts to pay them - before, during and probably well after our trials.

Lawyers, on my list of America's deadly sins, easily rank  at #3 on the "biggest problems in the country" list..  Lawyers abound by the thousands these days, and their numbers should soon equal 1 for every ten or so Americans, if the trend continues.  Americans are so greedy these days (and of course, we can not only attribute this to the "bend-over backwards"customer policies practiced by almost every store-front in America, we can also thank the commercials lawyer's offices air just about every 30 seconds of commercial airtime sold on just about every channel you're able to receive) that suing someone, some company, or some new drug on the market's producer has easily surpassed barbecuing  as the #1 American Pastime.

The sun has set on Day #12.  Only 14 more to go   :D