Jaybird asks:
My question: To what extent do you think that working with people who need a lawyer has changed your opinion on any given hot button political topic from, say, what it was when you first passed the bar?
I passed the bar nearly half a lifetime ago, when I was a very young man. I see newly-minted lawyers these days who are now as old as I was when my license was new, and I just shake my early-middle-aged head in amazement that they’re letting children practice law these days. I mean, they still have acne on their faces, instead of their shoulders where grownups get it.
That my opinions on issues would have evolved over two decades plus some change is only natural and it’s kind of difficult to tease out how my professional experiences have steered that evolution as opposed to more general life experience. And given the time-consumptive nature of practicing law for a living, it’s kind of difficult to separate out the two.
With that caveat, I’ll try to answer the question.
My opinions on same-sex marriage evolved as a result of legal work I did. I went from never having particularly thought about the issue at all to being in favor of the idea in a general sense as a result of being challenged (in a friendly way) by an opposing counsel. That was near the beginning of my career, at a time SSM was not really a mainstream issue. I moved away from “civil unions are just fine, the name doesn’t matter” to full SSM as a result of working with clients who’d had social difficulties with the term “partner.” Reading the opinion in The Marriage Cases put me over the top on that point.
Having seen federal courts in action, I remain convinced that were we to put appropriate security safeguards in place to protect confidential information, there is no reason whatsoever a regular United States District Court could not competently and reliably try a “terrorism” suspect. Indefinite uncharged military detainment is offensive to the Constitution no matter how dangerous a given prisoner is. If we have good evidence, and it’s simply a matter of finding appropriate rules by which that evidence can be presented to a court, then let Congress write those rules and let our prisoners be tried so that we can conform our own government’s behavior to our own law. If we don’t have good evidrnce then why are we depriving someone of their liberty? We should not fear the possibility that a defendant might be acquitted. We should have faith in our prosecutors and our courts and our laws.
Working on both sides of the fence in tort cases has convinced me that there is absolutely no need for tort reform. The tort law system works as intended and as it ought to. I am not at all sure than insurance is properly regulated, although it’s not as simple as saying “it’s regulated too much” or “it’s not regulated enough.” It’s regulated wrong. If it were regulated correctly and more transparently, perhaps there would not be as much hue and cry about tort reform as there periodically is. As for tort cases themselves, I’m quite comfortable that the system as a whole is pretty much where it ought to be right now.
The role of unions in the workforce and the economy is clearer to me now that I’ve worked with union members as clients and with business clients who have had union issues. I now have employer clients who like having a union agreement in place because it provides a structure for employee discipline: as the manager, he simply does what’s in the MOU and no one gives him static for disciplining an employee. So I’ve gone from being anti-union to pro-union as a result of my legal work.
I trust the police less than I used to, and a lot less than I would if I didn’t work with the legal system as I do. That’s a hard thing to say because I know a number of police officers and they’re great people, honest and sincere. It’s this mania for getting the bad guys that seems to come over a cop on the witness stand and suddenly the truth gets stretched and suddenly the cop is not just advocating for punishing a criminal but out and out lying and… It’s depressing, really. A sin born of good intent. And in moments of candor, even these cops I’m friends with will admit that there are cops who don’t have good intentions and enjoy the physical and punitive dimensions of the job a bit too much. So it’s a fine line between being friendly and professional with a cop and being cooperative and making admissions — a line I’m not sure I’m smart enough to walk while under the stress of questioning by a police officer, and I’m an attorney trained in that sort of thing.
Serving as a judge pro tem in traffic court has made me very conscious of my driving habits and on-the-road safety. That’s not really a hot-button political issue but people sure get hot about their traffic tickets!
Finally, since I began practicing law, I’ve reversed on marijuana legalization. A friend in high school got into a serious car accident driving while stoned. I blamed weed at the time and for many years afterwards, but now believe the pot had no material impact on it. Experience with users and a review of statistics has demonstrated to me that this was anomalous and my fear and anger at my friend’s experience should more properly have been directed at the careless driving that results from teenage arrogance. Alcohol is a far more dangerous substance where driving is concerned. Legal experience has demonstrated to me that far too many resources of the justice system are consumed in punishing marijuana use, which seems to be a punishment priority simply because it’s been arbitrarily criminalized. My only reservation about marijuana use is that I wish my clients who use the stuff would lay off for twenty-four hours before going to court, because it affects the quality of their testimony and it seems to take about that long for their brains to clear after sparking up. But whatever, I deal with it.
I still think rent control is a terrible idea. Legal experience has confirmed rather than called into question that pre-law belief.
Thanks for all your questions! Sorry if I didn’t get to yours. This was fun — we’ll do it again at some point in the future.
I agree with every single one of the points you’ve made here.
On the last – marijuana legalizatin – I think we need to do some research on violence, anger, and aggression and pot use; for my suspicion is that it decreases these things in general, but the fear associated with use increases. But I’ve not seen much evidence of stoners throwing fisticuffs; drunks, on the other hand. . .
*snort* yeah, all the research on marijuana shows that it tends to decrease motivation (particularly on stupid psych tasks), and increase thoughtfulness.
And reaction time, which IS an issue while driving. I still think driving while baked is properly classified as a DUI. But I am less alarmed at the diminished reaction time of the typical marijuana user than I am at the diminished reaction time of the typical alcohol user.
I read a few years back on a UK study of teen drives; boys who smoked pot were involved in fewer accidents because they tended to slow down.
A long time ago, I worked at a company that instituted drug testing. It turned out that an employee who was in trouble to begin with tested positive for pot, to the great relief of many. People were relieved when word came down, because she was so high-strung and difficult to deal with.
We pushed back against the policy, mostly because one of our top performers and another important guy were susceptible to getting canned. But when we pushed back, management was like “We have to. Marijuana dulls the senses. I mean, Carol was working here for god knows how long while smoking pot.”
To which I responded, “Carol had many problems, but dulled senses really was not among them.”
Yeah, it sounds like her problem with pot was not inhaling.
I haven’t commented much, but I really enjoyed reading your answers to the questions.
Same here. I don’t have much of value to add, but I enjoyed this immensely.
My view of tort reform is very ad hominem. The same people who think OSHA and other safety regulation go too far, because the market and the legal system can solve these problems want tort reform to prevent them from doing so.
Talk of “tort reform” always scares me.
They could roll all torts into one, and that would sure enough be “reform.”
I think “tort reform,” more than anything, is mindless lazy talk for, “I hate lawyers.”
If they would just come right out and say that, maybe more people would get behind it.
Awesome, thanks. I was wondering if working with the general public (specifically the folks who needed a lawyer) would result in greater paternalism after a while. (I mean, I work in IT… which means that I work pretty much entirely with people two or three standard deviations to the right which, I’m certain, colors my opinions on policies in general.)
Reading your answers and how you came about them was cool (and, yes, makes perfect sense).
Thank you.
Just wanted to express full-throated endorsement of every word of your paragraph about trying terrorism suspects.
Including my typo? 🙂
Seriously, I don’t think the military and the CIA pick these people at random. There’s undoubtedly a good reason they’re in captivity. Those reasons are based in some kind of evidence. To the extent that evidence is secret and ought not be made public it should be presented to the court under seal or through some equivalent procedure Congress can create.
There’s undoubtedly a good reason they’re in captivity.
Sometimes it’s “Because someone turned them in for the bounty.”
When folks carry on about Turrism, I remind them of the trial of the Blind Sheikh and his conviction by a New York jury. Malcolm Gladwell sums it up nicely, quoting Judge Mukasey:
When he finally succeeded, the judge delivered a lecture of his own, telling the sheik that he was being sent to prison for the rest of his life not because of his religious beliefs, but because he was the “leader of a terrorist conspiracy” that had planned a campaign that would have “cost hundreds if not thousands of lives” and made “the World Trade Center bombing seem of little consequence.”
“There are thousands of Muslims in this country who contribute as productive, loyal and peaceful citizens,” Mukasey said. The sheik, he added, wasn’t one of them.
I’ve often thought the worst aspect of the War on Terror was to call it a war. By dubbing it a War and not a criminal conspiracy and air piracy and murder and a host of other perfectly valid and prosecutable crimes, we forfeited the moral high ground. It commingled UCMJ justice with civilian justice — and that’s where the whole shebang went sideways. I leave it to Ackshul Lawyers to opine on just how bad this commingling was and is — but I know soldiers who screwed up on base went through the UCMJ system and those who screwed up off-base went through the civilian justice system.
The problem with calling it “air piracy” is that the term is almost impossible to take seriously. It’s making me laugh right now.
Criminal conspiracy, murder, etc. are fine terms.
My only reservation about marijuana use is that I wish my clients who use the stuff would lay off for twenty-four hours before going to court, because it affects the quality of their testimony and it seems to take about that long for their brains to clear after sparking up. But whatever, I deal with it.
…I can’t imagine. I’m glad I don’t have your job.