Its always fascinating, to read the bios of some of the major law firm partners on their webpages
They seem like they would be model citizens and just like the nice guys "next door".
Who they are and what they can do for you is plainly enough spelled out and they are just
those who are gifted above the average lawyer and they can do for you, your company and/or
your government official beyond your best expectations...just "hire us and see"...
But what is it precisely that such law firms are truly selling? Is it purely the fine legal minds
and their extra ordinary law school performances?
Is it their collective legal IQ on the highest end of the human mental capacity? Even better, is it their atomic weight of moral mass that exceeds all others, as if they are letting the rest of the culture of law and the public know "we are, humbly stating, we're just and we're just more equal than anyone else, period."
Or in fact, does it have something to do with who they know, what they do and how far they are willing to go to "get the job done"???
i.e. are they willing to do what many solo and small firm lawyers and law firms would not even consider doing and/or even if they would could not even begin to contemplate, because of the pure
political and personal ethical issues that would arise if they did?
What is most interesting, is such "super lawyers" so called, often are bright and motivated and very
good at what they call "the law". However, what they usually bring to the table is something well beyond the Harvard classics and the nice big resource of legal experience they may or may not have;
What they bring as every one knows is that what makes them today so happy and interested in "government affairs" as they are more than happy to reference on their very "clean" law firm webpages; not so much the brilliant legal minds; ']these are a dime a dozen across the nation today}
Rather, most often, its something much more basic, and courser; its the good ol' business minded and well honed resource that is such in demand today around the globe; extremely serious influence upon government actors and their well understood and minted insider connections to the highest corridors of the powers that be, including those connections within and between and among high state and federal court courthouses and their most august judicial chambers.
And in turn, this access and influence and "credibility" as they like to refer to it, has much of its roots, and firmness, in the money game; following the money trail all the way up and back again between the major firms, their mainline partners, the shared political connections and relationships and all those serious judicial appointments, elections and friendly candidacies, campaigns and most of all, high court judicial appointees.
What major law firms can boast mostly of, among themselves and especially outwardly to any interested client, is not only that they have a lot of wanna-be very smart and bright young guys and girls just waiting to move up on the corporate law ladder; this is NOT what separates any one major law firm from another ---everyone is bright at such law firms, at this multimillion dollar baby lawyer level or even billion dollar law firm level... {well, at least, shrewd at a minimum, maybe not visionary or extraordinarily brilliant, in the main, at least, well- honed and willing to play ball big time}
What they have at such firms, is what the solos and the small firms, usually lack or can't boast of, to their clients;
that is they are selling that which goes along way today in any state capital, or major urban center and especially in DC;
that is- 'access' or "leverage" to the corridors of powers and especially "good relations and terms" with high judges and especially being "on good terms" in such judges' "back rooms"...or at least on their campaign donor days and moreover, at the time of the federal judicial appointments, being in the know at such and such law firm inner circles.
Now, they would never admit to this and they would denounce anyone who says this is the way things are and how they get done in big town and big courts USA...
But the truth isn't to found in them, but only by observing what they do; they are like the Pharisees of old....telling everyone where to get off, how far to jump and exactly where and where the ethical lines are so finely drawn...cleanly around them. Of course, their partners exist in a supra ethical world, well beyond the reach or reasonable doubt of having one of their own ever brought into questions for the kinds of things they ethically or otherwise engage in, and must do, in order to survive and 'better' their equals...to get their clients satisfied and to be able to boast of their huge resumes...
'
Most of all, these exist in some kind of superior urber-minch matrix where others simply cannot and would not be able to exist nor survive; i.e. its far easier to label and to condemn those "others" who can't live at the level they do or inhabit the kinds of corridors or professional careers that these do...it takes a "special kind" of lawyer to do this...
simple ordinary small solo or small town lawyers or those who don't generate from a huge practice in corporate law or major law firm's worlds, can not be viewed as made of the same genetic material as these who occupy the upper 1 % or so, of the highest and major positions in major metro city law firms across our states and nation.
TO admit that a small solo lawyer is made of the same material and can compete, even win against such major law firms and their key partners to tantamount to admitting to a script that is very threatening and challenges their very position and their very 'superior' ideology.
Thus, its supremely easy for such lawyer to sit on high boards, and councils and pronounce ethical judgments against "their inferiors"...and condemn them and label them ...with crippling legal legacies, when such lawyers have no idea and have never fought nor ever even considered for a day the pressures that exist inside or within a true solo or small town or small scale lawyers practice, especially one who want to do justice and follow the truth ...to make serious change happen
Such idealistic lawyers are perceived by the powers that be as "crazy" and "out of touch" and simply "dangerous to the public and common good" because they actually may step outside of the legal and ethical imaging that is created and maintained by those in powerful seats of legal power over their peers.
It is a cultural thing among lawyers. There are lawyers and then there are lawyers and for those who occupy the highest seats of power inside the worldly powers of high courts, high commissions and high appointments and benches and appointments; for some of them, its not uncommon to begin to believe, that they are in fact, not mere humans with foibles and given to temptations of ordinary human beings, sinful and in need of grace to make them clean inside and out.... but rather, they in fact, live a career that self sustains the legal fiction that they are indeed, given to be the blessed legal gods allowed to walk among us lesser ones...and they can do little or no wrong...but rather, they can only befittingly...."do the professional best"... and this means a lot to them and to their million dollar clientele.
Now, this is what it appears ... and this is what it feels like, to work near and with and among them; despite all their pretense and protests to the contra and their nice "clean" we "do a lot for our community" imaging and those beautiful if not, theatrical yet totally self serving webpages devoted to "such professionalism and courtesy and commitment" for our clients. Never has the sound of major greed and defensive power plays, simply been so well managed, like the perfect script that it is...and more importantly, the legal culture that it testifies for,
but it sounds all SO righteous! just like some staged made for TV mega church leader's sermon does ... holiness when dressed up in corporatism has its own weight and offense
lawyers parading in the Kabuki theatre of ...high sounding professionalism and "lawyer's ethics"...has the same kind of tone and ring if not feel
and believe me, ...from those who have had to sit across from such inside a federal courtroom, or inside a high judges chambers or worse, having been hailed before one or more of such "super lawyers', its not unlike something of a serf being made to appear before a LORD or King...
{or mayb being hailed before a inquisitor...labeled as a heretic...}
Such are these mighty ethical ones; indeed, as their own vaulted "clean and safe" webpages state
These lawyers even list "civil rights" as among their "chosen areas of practice.
Now, this is good. Gotta love this.
Can you even imagine such highly connected powerful lawyers taking on the cause of the urban poor against some major urban government entity? it sounds farcical on its face right?
no, no one believes it either.
But, make no mistake, they do this kind of advertising among themselves; and just note, IF any such major corporate law firm huge "superlawyer" lists "civil rights" and "personal injury" and "government relations" as their emphasis as a key area of their "clean" practice and "litigation matrix"; run and run far and fast from them
They do NOT mean, they are representing individual American citizens or ordinary average citizens against the powers that be, inside a fight of a lifetime. Rather, what this 'clean image' doublespeak means is, these are the very ones who represent the most serious powerful status quo powers in any given arena, including the police, the government and corporate insurers, that you can ever bring a legal claim against and these are those who are willing to do ANYTHING NECESSARY to make your individual citizens civil rights claim "disappear" and dissolve into the universe's black holes...
These are the minions of powerful interests who employ such arbitrary minds who lack even the most common human thread of compassion and are willing to dig up your past to the finest grist mill and then use it against you and your wife or your family in such a manner to hurt you, not just inside such a litigation piece but in your very life.
And this is called "good" and "highly skilled litigators" and such and so forth.
These are the kinds of lawyers that give the profession, its truly known and bad reputation, not the occasionally mistaken and misdirected even at times, sadly if not hard pressed, de-focused solo lawyer.
But then, who creates these "clean" images and "nice neighbor" webpages, for these huge metro, large law firms and "super lawyers"?
Oftentimes, its the same interests and folks who make the image for most of corporate America and the same folks you will be suing if you bring a major lawsuit against one of their huge clients or governmental entities that they receive million dollar retainers for and then claim in their public imaging that "we do civil rights" or "personal injury" or "family law"...
All of it is a charade at some level; and its contains about the same depth of integrity that is involved in any staged act that wants to convince us that what is portrayed as merely a verbal statement is truthful when in fact it is something far, different that what it appears or is made to sound like when dressed up in common language of the ordinary person or citizen.
Monday, June 30, 2014
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