Posted by: Laura
Comment: #1
Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:42 AM
If I read one more column about how lawyers are the scum of the earth...Lawyers are in the business of vindicating rights. Ideally, a lawyer does not take a case that she believes to be without merit. Certainly there are unscrupulous practitioners, interested only in racking up fees, but these people exist within every profession, even the righteous journalists (and do you honestly think that dragging someone's name through the mud without benefit of actual fact-finding is not force?). There are safeguards in place within our system that seek to prevent or discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits; for example, a lawyer can be subject to contempt citation or even disbarment, and, in many circumstances, a plaintiff will be required to put up a bond to cover litigation expenses in case he is not ultimately successful. If these sanctions are not imposed often enough for your taste, that's perhaps something to take up with individual judges. But to paint all lawyers, or even just all lawyers involved in class actions, with the same bullying brush is unfair to a group of people who, by and large, just want to see justice done.
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