Am I a Wuss Lawyer?
Eric the Unwashed Advocate writes:
You know who and what you are.
You’re the guy who goes into court with a couple of decent motions. You file them knowing that you have a great chance of succeeding because, hey, the law appears to be on your side. From your perspective. You expect to win.
Then, you don’t. . . .
. . .
Then, as you lay on the ground, exhausted from your crying. You reach for your keyboard. You write. No, not a motion or legal brief. You write on Facebook, or a message board, or a twit. You write about the unfairness. You kick the process, the “system,” the rules, and the deck so deftly stacked against your client. Unfairness reins supreme.
Tears pour from your words.
And not a damn bit of it helps your client.
Is that me?
I’ve noted before that, given particularly awful precedent in my state, things I’ve written here could conceivably get me disbarred. But my willingness to write those things in spite of that doesn’t prove I’m not a wuss, because, as I’ve also noted before, part of me thinks the supreme court would be doing me a favor by disbarring me. Does my indifference to whether I remain a lawyer itself make me a wuss? I don’t think so. There are many ways to wage war, of which a license to practice law is only one.
I view this blog as constituting a very small contribution to a very large (in terms of stakes if not of numbers of wagers) campaign, which the powers-that-be do not regard with unconcern. That campaign says: “Pay attention to the man behind the curtain.” “The Emperor has no clothes.” “The Constitution is of No Authority.” These ideas, if they become general, will have consequences.
Yes, my only weapon in this campaign is a keyboard. What would Eric call me if it wasn’t?
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And you care what this fellow thinks because?
1Oh, I don’t really care what he thinks. He wrote a post a while ago attacking you that clearly demonstrated his thought processes are faulty.
His post implies it’s whiny and craven, i.e., something a “wuss” does, to fairly call attention to and call out the unfairness of the system. That’s a faulty and dangerous way of looking at things. It is itself the thought process of a “wuss,” and gives comfort and aid to “wusses.” So yeah, I guess to the extent anybody reads his blog, and finds comfort and aid in this particular post for their “wussiness,” I do care, just as I care when a published court opinion flouts reason and enacts injustice.
2