Quidam Stultus non Sulvit

Being a lawyer, I have probably heard a majority of the lawyer jokes out there. Most of them revolve around lawyers being greedy. (Ever heard of the law firm Dewey, Cheatham & Howe?)

Anyway, I saw an interesting writeup in Above the Law today about reasonable fees and decided to share a few things:

our ethical canon specifically prohibits such greed by imposing limits on attorney’s fees. In particularly, ABA Model Rule 1.5(a) states that “[a] lawyer shall not make an agreement for, charge or collect an unreasonable fee….”

And because reasonable is one of these amorphous terms not subject to clear delineation like “love,” “beauty” and “monogamy in a long-distance relationship,” Rule 1.5(a) goes further and lays out eight specific factors to consider in determining whether a lawyer’s fee is reasonable; such as the time and labor required, local market prices, the amount involved, the experience and ability of the lawyer, etc. And while it is true that the drafters of this rule were not clear in setting forth how many of the eight factors must be met for a lawyer’s fee to be deemed “reasonable,” at least they attempted to put some constraints on our rapacity.

In other words, the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility (I know, the rules of lawyerly ethics . . . probably seems like a contradiction in terms) prohibit lawyers from being too greedy. Of course, this is a violation of the canon of free markets, for those who take such things seriously.

This stands in stark contrast to the general rule of a free market economy, which generally presumes that any fee is reasonable so long as you can get some fool to pay it. In fact, I believe that Adam Smith said precisely those words when negotiating his publishing contract for The Wealth of Nations. Or perhaps, it was P.T. Barnum who first said it.

So, the phrase in the title? Well, I don't know many lawyers that would pass up the opportunity to say something in Latin that could easily be stated in English, but it means "some fool paid it."

If some fool would pay me $10,000 to mow his lawn, that's fine. If that same fool wanted to pay me $10,000 to handle his expungement or review a contract, I'd probably be in ethical hot water.

Just a thought.

 

A Bit More About Defamation

I wrote previously about that a$$hat Kurt Schleichter (sp?). This is a small piece of the quote from my earlier piece:

You find the Twitter trolls who circulated these lies and then find out their paymasters. And you find the blue check psychos demanding these kids be murdered for their race, religion, gender, and the baffled smile, in the face of the abuse that these liars hid from their audience.

Upon further review, I am kind of inclined to agree with this. I would love to find the Twitter trolls who circulate lies; I would love to find their paymasters. I believe Mr. Schleichter and I have differing views as to who the trolls are and who is paying them (he likely believes George Soros is behind this somewhere; I tend to believe that the Russian troll farms are the problem).

I would also like to expose anyone who believes that people should "be murdered for their race, religion, gender" and so on and so forth, including for "the baffled smile." I do wonder, however, whether Mr. Schleichter believes that "all" people in America (or the world) should be afforded this right or only privileged white kids.

Should young black men be murdered by the police simply because of their race? Simply because the police believe that the neighborhood is dangerous and black people are violent? I don't think so. How does Mr. Schleichter feel?

I'd say the same about religion. Where does Mr. Schleichter stand on Individual 1's "complete shutdown of Muslims coming into this country"? Does he believe that invading Muslim countries is OK because they are lesser beings? I don't know; I'm simply posing questions.

How about gender? Where does Mr. Schleichter come down on a woman's right not to be groped by entitled men? What about women who are drug into bedrooms by drunken teenage boys and groped? Is that just "boys will be boys" or is that an actual problem? What say Mr. Schleichter and his compatriots over at Town Hall?

As to the "baffled smile," how many young people of color are "stopped and frisked" because they "look suspicious" in some sort of undefined way (i.e. they are people of color).

I think one of the big problems in our society is that people selectively empathize with others. Mr. Schleichter saw the MAGA teen and immediately empathized with him, never stopping to think about the level of disrespect he was showing to the elderly man participating in the native peoples' march. So many people jumped to Brett Kavanaugh's defense because they empathized with him, not with his accusers. People say "Blue Lives Matter" because they empathize with police officers at the expense of the young people of color who are arrested and killed at a disproportionate rate.

I guess now I'm just rambling. Some people have accused me of being so liberal I can't take my own side in an argument. So it goes.