Saturday, September 24, 2011

When The Legal System Operates

By Christopher Simmons


With a lot of victories under their belt, a lot has been done from resolving issues pertaining to the tobacco industry to public issues like sex discrimination and civil rights. When it comes to this particular line of work, nothing beats its size and wealth. Even if this is the case, there are restrictions that are being imposed on lawyers due to excessive legal fees not to mention excessive litigation.

You cannot try cases now as you please and this is because of these restrictions which also limit the kinds of advice that a layer can provide his or her clients with. People cannot simply rely on the legal system in America these days because of the restrictions that have been imposed. A lot of lawyers are good at what they do and this has led to the idea of stopping the absolute freedom of lawyers to represent their clients.

In this case, what good will come out of threats issued to the independence of the legal profession? In this case, this is something that is done to address legitimate public concerns. In reality, what you have here is a plan of action against the growing arrogance of lawyers and not something that is aimed towards the restriction of the profession.

It was actually a Philadelphia trial lawyer who is a former chairman of the bar association's ethics committee who mentioned that they are doing this to prevent the same thing that happened to the medical profession from happening to them. But they have to defend the proposition of professional independence right now. There is no room for idle time.

It might be safe to say that lawyers are facing more challenges than doctors. State legislatures and Congress have all imposed new restrictions. A host of new federal and state laws and court decisions, for example, make it harder to bring certain kinds of personal injury suits, limit the legal arguments available in immigration cases, and curtail civil rights suits on behalf of prisoners. There have been numerous cases where the money of the government has been misused and abused and what this led to were restrictions on the part of all government financed lawyers for the poor. When it comes to this, there is a ruling that is actually referred to as Granny's Lawyer Goes to Jail. This is something that can be applied to a lawyer who is found guilty of teaching an old person how to give away property to qualify for need based Medicaid benefits. According to a US District Court in Albany, this is a real law. Lawyers do not have it easy for they need to deal with these limits and the changes that are happening.

When it comes to insurance companies and malpractice suits, they are now reviewing the expenditures of the lawyers that deal with such cases. Some of the lawyers say that is an invasion of their professional autonomy. There was a proposal from the Bar Association commission with regard to the authorization of lawyers to practice law in accounting and other professional service firms since a lot of them have already been working for financial firms all around. Some lawyers say such lawyer employees lack the autonomy to make independent judgments.

When it comes to this, statistics can provide you with the information that you need. Just 20 years ago, government statistics show, there were three lawyers for every 1,000 Americans. Now there are more than 4.6 lawyers for every 1,000 Americans. You can say that these lawyers are making loads of money from the kind of work that they do.




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