|
|
Book Chapter Summaries of
Wake Up and Smell
the Lawyers.
How Law and Odor Are Choking America
to Death.
The
book
lawyers don't want you to read - or even know about!
Pick up your copy today!
-
Presented By Lawyers Stink, Inc. -
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1 — One Hell of a Bad Smell
Chapter 2 —
Lawsuit Insanity Running Amuck and
Running America Into the Ground
Chapter 3 —
Money - The Root of All Lawyers
Chapter 4 —
Keep The Meter Running At All Costs
Chapter 5 —
They’re Here, They’re There … They’re Everywhere
Chapter 6 — Liar, Liar,
Pants on Fire
Chapter 7 — It Takes Two
to Tango
Chapter 8 — Guilty Until
Proven Innocent
Chapter 9 —
Uncivil Wars
Chapter 10 — Head of the
Class
Chapter 11 —
Who’s Next?
Chapter 12 — Contempt of
Court
Chapter 13 — Justice for
Sale
Chapter 14 — An Open and
Shut Case
ORDER YOUR
COPY ONLINE TODAY!
Taken from Chapter 1 of
Wake Up and
Smell the Lawyers — One Hell of a
Bad Smell.
Law and odor in America. There’s one hell
of a rotten smell emanating from virtually every corner in America and
like most disgusting odors that linger in the air, this stench isn’t going
away. As a matter of fact, the odor seems to be growing stronger and
exponentially more offensive with each passing day. This sickening bouquet
has permeated virtually every facet of the American way of life and, given
enough time, will ultimately taint anything and everything that it comes
in contact with it. As these noxious fumes waft their way across America,
each of us are forced to pay an immeasurable price. A once proud nation,
where energy and resourcefulness ruled the day, is being methodically
reduced to a rubble.
We’ve become a squabbling, quarrelsome pack of money grubbing whine bags
who routinely sue each other for such nefarious grievances as slipping on
a grape in a grocery store, spilling hot coffee in the lap while driving,
falling off a toilet seat and for getting a bad hair cut. Yes, these
insane lawsuits really did happen! Just what in the hell is going on here?
Law and odor, that’s what, and boy, that’s a rot gut combo to be sure. To
succinctly paraphrase a borrowed slogan from an old cigarette commercial
“We’ve come the wrong way, baby”. Oops, that may be a poor choice of
words. In today’s increasingly litigious society, even casually making an
off the cuff inference to an old tobacco related commercial could prove
hazardous to my health. With blood sucking lawyers circling over the
tobacco industry like famished vultures hovering over a decaying carcass,
I sure as heck don’t want to get caught up in that line of fire.
Where were we? Oh yeah, we were talking about lawyers and the offensive
and nauseating malodor that accompanies them everywhere they go. Lawyers
are everywhere you look - and it’s not a pretty sight to behold. And every
place you find a lawyer, you’ll discover a putrid, pungent cloud billowing
up all around them. Lawyers, by and large, are a stinky lot and all of the
deodorant in the world isn’t going to mask the foulness. Unfortunately,
far too many of us have gotten so accustomed to holding our noses for so
long that we scarcely even notice the awful smell anymore. Lawyers have
been surreptitiously working overtime to permeate our subconscious minds,
incrementally brainwashing us in the fine art of becoming helpless victims
- and the years and years of hard work is now paying off in spades.
Lawyers have us right where they want us - busily scurrying all around
looking for all sorts of inventive new ways to sue somebody over
something. Where innovation, creativity and ingenuity were once the
magnificent cornerstones of America’s entrepreneurial drive and spirit,
these precepts are now merely platitudes lawyers manipulate while seeking
out innovative, creative and ingenious ways to sue the pants off those
around us. Lawsuits, conflicts, fighting, fusing and fuming now rule the
day while the lawyers, not surprisingly, rule the roost.
back to top
ORDER YOUR COPY ONLINE TODAY!
Taken from Chapter 6 of
Wake Up and
Smell the Lawyers — Liar, Liar, Pants on
Fire.
Why liars make good lawyers and lawyers
make good liars. Determining whether one needs to be a lawyer before
one becomes a good liar or be a good liar before one is deemed a good
lawyer (try saying that three times very quickly!) is sort of like
choosing which comes first - the chicken or the rotten egg? When it comes
to lawyers, the question is moot. Lawyers lie and they lie all of the
time. That’s just the way it is. When it comes down to misleading,
deceiving and baffling regular folks on a regular basis, lawyers are the
absolute best in the business. They can turn fact into fiction and fiction
into fact. Regardless of whether you’re talking about a little white lie
or a major league whopper, lawyers simply have no peers. The oath their
victims must swear to - telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth - doesn’t apply to them. No sir, they simply cannot allow the
truth to mess things up or get in their way. Lying and lawyers, lawyers
and lying, this dynamic duo just seems to go hand in hand. And like it or
not, that spells double trouble for the rest of us.
But come on, can lawyers really be blamed for their appalling lack of
honesty or integrity? Can they really help themselves? After all, just
look at the company they keep. In a profession literally laced with some
of the sleaziest con artists and shake down specialists the world has ever
known (we’re talking about the lawyers, not their clients!), lying,
cheating and swindling is the name of the game. The legal field is replete
with shysters who have become virtual virtuosos in the fine art of
deception and deceit. And as far as their profound propensity for
obfuscating, prevaricating and equivocating at every turn, aren’t we being
a little picky? When you get right down to the nitty-gritty, fabricating
the facts, twisting the truth and finagling the figures are requisite
tricks of their trade and no self-respecting lawyer would leave home
without them. Whether we like it or not, lying has become an integral
facet of our legal system. And lawyers, by and large, wouldn’t have it any
other way.
back to top
ORDER YOUR COPY ONLINE TODAY!
Taken from Chapter 7 of
Wake Up and
Smell the Lawyers — It Takes Two to Tango.
Two’s company and three’s … a lawsuit.
A lawyer once told me that running a law firm was akin to running a house
of ill repute - you couldn’t run either without a stable of paying
customers. He confided that lawyers couldn’t get away with half of the
crap they pull without a heck of a lot of help and sadly, there’s
certainly no scarcity of help available. As the inimitable Howard Cosell
used to say, the lawyer was simply “telling it like it is”. Running a law
office and running a whore house do have a lot in common. First and
foremost, lawyers and brothels need customers. Lawyers need people who
want to sue the pants off one another (the more, the merrier the lawyer)
while the later needs customers who want … well, you know what they want.
Without a steady stream of more than accommodating customers who are
ready, willing and able to sue each other at the drop of a hat, lawyers
would be out of business pronto. But don’t look for them to break a sweat
over the prospects of running out of customers any time soon.
As strange as it may sound, lawyers also need other lawyers to keep the
system running at peak billing efficiency. It has been said that if
there’s only one lawyer in a town, he’s probably going to starve to death.
But if you have two or more lawyers in the same town, then all of them
will be doing quite well. The more lawyers move into town, the more action
there’ll be for all the lawyers. Unfortunately for us and quite
fortunately for them, there’s no need to worry about running out of
lawyers any time soon either. The ready availability of lawyers helps
drive the system and believe you me, there’s more than enough business and
lawyers to go around. You are not likely to see too many lawyers down on
the local street corner holding a “will work for food” sign. Lawyers and
lawsuits abound and at our present pace, it’s only the tip of the iceberg.
How did we as a country plunge so far south in such a short period of
time? How did lawyers gain such limitless control of virtually every facet
of our everyday lives? One could reasonably argue that the proliferation
of the litigation feeding frenzy we are currently experiencing in America
coincides neatly with the widespread erosion of personal responsibility in
our country. In the feel good about yourself society in which we all live,
it is now almost villainous for anyone to hold anybody accountable for
anything. In our futile attempt to liberate ourselves from any sort of
accountability, we have played right into the lawyers’ hands. By
artificially assuring ourselves that we are OK and absolving ourselves
from the possibility of being personally responsible for anything we say,
think or do, we have all become “victims” in one form or another. And
nobody, but nobody, knows how to create victims and play one person
against someone else better than lawyers.
back to top
ORDER YOUR COPY ONLINE TODAY!
Taken from Chapter 8 of
Wake Up and
Smell the Lawyers — Guilty Until Proven
Innocent.
The presumption of guilt. In
America’s judicial system, everyone is supposedly granted the presumption
of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law. Heavy emphasis should
be placed on the word “supposedly” however. This presumption of innocence,
the cornerstone of our legal system, is designed to provide the bedrock
backdrop for fair and unbiased legal proceedings. The rules of legal
engagement are clearly defined and delineated. The law stipulates that the
burden of proof lies squarely with the party bringing the charge,
regardless of whether the setting is civil or criminal in nature. The
plaintiff must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt based on the facts
of the particular case and the evidence presented, not on hearsay,
speculation or innuendo. Additionally, the defendant is granted the
opportunity to defend himself or herself against the charges being levied.
The presumption of innocence is of paramount importance if the accused is
to receive a fair and equitable hearing. Sadly, nothing could be further
from the truth than the presumption of innocence these days. The
presumption of innocence in America’s jurisprudence is indeed a
presumption these days - presumed dead and gone that is.
Lawyers rarely give a hoot about innocence or guilt. To their perverse way
of thinking, guilt and innocence are nebulous, abstract, pie in the sky
type of concepts and generally aren’t worth getting all worked up over.
Besides, guilt and innocence generally have very little to do with the
lawyer getting paid. Speaking of money, can there be any debate about
whether guilt and innocence in the courtroom depends a great deal on which
side of the table the lawyer is sitting. The presumption of innocence the
lawyer maintains for his or her client is always directly correlated to
the size of the client’s bankroll. It should be noted that lawyers,
especially those criminal lawyers engaged in the criminal defense area of
law, have always believed that the very best client to have is one who has
a great deal of money and who finds himself in a great deal of difficulty.
The lawyer would naturally prefer that his or her client actually be
innocent of the charges levied, but that fact alone is not going to carry
the day or pay the piper for that matter. And even if the lawyer’s client
is as guilty as sin, many a lawyer will manage to overlook that minor
inconvenience for the right price.
By and large, lawyers are quick to pin the guilt on the other party. Very
quick. Regardless of who is right or wrong in the dispute, lawyers hold
the position that it’s always the other side’s fault. Always. The lawyers
have to hold that position, regardless of how absurd or indefensible that
contention may actually in fact be, or they would be out of business
lickety split. Pinning the blame on someone else is the very foundation on
which the legal industry operates. Lawyers know that this “pin the blame
on someone else” message plays well to the masses. Blaming others is
second nature to most of us anyway and lawyers have mastered the ability
to tap into this universal tendency. Blaming others is good for their
business, very good indeed, and lawyers specialize in pinning the blame on
the other guy.
If we know one thing for certain about lawyers in general, it is that
lawyers play no favorites. As long as a potential client can pony up and
foot the bill, lawyers will generally take any and all comers. They have
no ethical hang ups about taking on shady, disreputable clients or even
those who are plain as day guilty - mainly because the lawyers have no
ethics themselves. I have personally witnessed lawyer upon lawyer,
representing some of the most reprehensible varmints on the face of the
earth, run roughshod over one innocent party after another, falsely
accusing the innocent individuals of virtually everything sinister under
the sun. Without so much as a blush or a blink of the eye, they trample
all over the opposing parties’ rights and kick sand in the face of that
bothersome presumption of innocence crapola. All the while, they
righteously defend their own censurable clients’ rights and presumption of
innocence - the legal equivalent of having your cake and eating it too.
back to top
ORDER YOUR COPY ONLINE TODAY!
Taken from Chapter 10 of
Wake Up and
Smell the Lawyers — Head of the Class.
A real class act. The inevitable
implosion of any semblance of justice remaining in our dilapidated legal
system began once the class action epidemic hit full throttle. We’ve
talked here and there about the mind numbing exponential growth of the
class action litigation activity nationwide. In this chapter we’ll expose
the seedy underside of the class action lawsuit lawyers and see firsthand
how a class action lawsuit shell game is pulled off.
Trial lawyers have long professed that their primary motivation is the
public’s safety and general welfare rather than their own personal gain.
As is always the case when lawyers start yapping about the public good and
how the money isn’t really important, their superficial, self indulgent
statements just don’t hold water. Lawyers are always in it for the money
and the trial lawyers are certainly no exception to the rule. Money first,
last and always is their unspoken motto. And calling some of these sleaze
bags “trial” lawyers is something of a misnomer anyway. The fact of the
matter is that the majority of class action lawsuits are settled prior to
a trial taking place. Perhaps calling them shakedown specialists would be
more apropos. Regardless of what we call them, and there’s some really
good names I can think of right now, these lawyers have ushered in the
emergence of an entire new industry - the class action lawsuit - and these
lawyers are making more money than they ever dreamed possible.
The class action industry was pioneered by entrepreneurial lawyers who
threw caution to the wind and blasted through the once professionally
taboo area of client solicitation. These rambunctious gang of renegades
were initially looked upon by the rest of the legal community as tacky,
trashy pariahs who were a blight on the legal profession at large. But as
is always the case with lawyers, once the others caught wind of the
heretofore unimaginable amounts of money these trailblazers were raking
in, professional ethics were quickly tossed aside and thousands upon
thousands hopped into the action. Predictably, the number of lawsuits that
followed jumped off the Richter scale. Rather than solving problems and
serving their clients’ best interests, lawyers began stirring up even more
trouble. These movers and shakers knew that the more trouble they could
shake and bake, the more money they could make as a result. And nowhere
was there more trouble brewing than the tobacco industry.
back to top
ORDER YOUR COPY ONLINE TODAY!
Taken from Chapter 12 of
Wake Up and
Smell the Lawyers — Contempt of Court.
How lawyers have converted the
courthouse into an outhouse. When you happen upon any courthouse in
America, whether it be the monolithic superstructure in the heart of a
metropolitan business district or the stately county seat in a small town
square, what are your first impressions? Do you feel a sense of awe as you
behold the majestic old edifice or alternatively, do you suppress a
sickening sense of disgust? Do you see these municipal buildings as places
of honor, integrity and civic pride or do you hold them in considerably
less esteem? Do you see them as halls of justice or instead, merely halls
of shame? The manner in which we view these courthouses and the feelings
they generate inside of us has a great deal to do with whether or not we
have ever experienced them firsthand.
Ask most folks who have endured any sort of legal proceeding down at the
local courthouse how they feel about the place and you’ll likely get an
ear full. And depending on who you ask, you might need to run for cover.
One thing is for certain, you’re not likely to hear any rave reviews. Few
people, winners and losers of lawsuits alike, would list their courtroom
experiences as anything to write home about. If you’re asking “why is this
the case?”, you need to get down on your knees and count your blessings
right now. You’ve obviously never had the pleasure of being riddled and
ridiculed to pieces by a condescending, self righteous lawyer in front of
a crowded courtroom audience. You’ve never had to endure, up close and
personal, the vitriolic rant of a loquacious lawyer holding court at your
expense, both figuratively and literally as well. You’re are still down on
your knees, aren’t you?
The courthouse is the lawyer’s stage - the theater in which they boldly
hold court. Here, along with the judges who we’ll cover a bit later, the
lawyers are the top dogs, the big cheeses, the head honchos. What about
everyone else? Where do they fall in the grand scheme of things? They
don’t. The rest are simply the serfs - the cringing, cowering masses who
must submissively kowtow to the judges and their lawyer cronies alike.
These underlings hold no status whatsoever. Sure, these vassals are
important in some minuscule aspect I suppose, since they provided the
catalyst for the lawsuits in the first place. Someone has to sue somebody
about something or another to get the ball rolling. But that’s about the
extent of their relevance. These sue happy suers (or should we say
“sewers”?) along with their foaming at the mouth sue happy lawyers, have
transformed the these once hallowed halls of justice into dingy,
disgusting, disreputable outhouses where just about anything goes and the
lawyers couldn’t be more pleased. While the rest of us are forced to hold
our collective noses, lawyers revel in the pernicious stench reeking from
courthouses throughout America. Law and order were once the illustrious
bywords of America’s unsullied justice system, having long since been
replaced by a reeking, stinking, malodorous stench.
back to top
ORDER YOUR COPY ONLINE TODAY!
Taken from Chapter 13 of
Wake Up and
Smell the Lawyers — Justice for Sale.
Bought and sold. Is justice truly
for sale in the courtrooms of the United States? While that question could
be argued for hours on end, there can be little cogent debate that
America’s justice system is wrought with prejudice, corruption and
avarice. Sometimes it seems that getting a fair shake in court these days
depends a great deal on who’s representing you and what kind of strings
your lawyer can pull. Who the lawyer knows seems to mean a lot more than
what he or she knows anymore. The lawyer with the right connections always
holds the upper hand over the lawyer who doesn’t. Always. From top to
bottom and everywhere in between, the legal community is a tight nit
conglomeration of cliques and inner circles. If your lawyer is not part of
the “in” crowd - the good old boy network where glad handing and behind
the scenes dealing rule the day - you may find yourself in a whole heap of
trouble if and when you land in court.
Lawyers who are friendly with the judges in the courts in which they
practice hold a huge ace in the hole. After all, when it’s all said and
done, judges are the final arbiters in all lawsuits. Judges run the show
and can generally dictate the path of any given case brought before their
court. Judges have a lot more latitude than most people think when it
comes to presiding over a case and a judge can make or break a case if he
or she so chooses. Throughout the legal proceedings, from the pre-trial
motions and hearings right through the trial testimony, judges make
rulings on a number of issues that can directly influence the direction of
any lawsuit and ultimately the outcome of the suit as well. Even in jury
trials, judges can still exert an enormous amount of power on how the
cases will be decided in the end. A crackerjack crook of a judge can swing
a case in any direction he or she wants by selectively admitting or
omitting evidence and testimony, randomly overruling or sustaining
objections and indiscriminately ruling on assorted legal aspects of the
case. While the lawyers may protest, the judge is the final decision
maker. If anyone, be it the lawyers or their clientele, disagrees with the
verdict or decision rendered, their only recourse is to take the case to
an appeals court - an expensive and time consuming route which we will
cover a little later in this chapter.
back to top
ORDER YOUR COPY ONLINE TODAY!
Taken from Chapter 14 of
Wake Up and
Smell the Lawyers — An Open and Shut Case.
Lawyers hear, see and speak no evil - of
lawyers. But don’t look for the so-called good lawyers to join the
movement to end lawsuit abuse in America. Even the good lawyers, the ones
who are most offended by the odoriferous stench emanating from their
fellow lowlife colleagues, will run and hide or stick their heads in the
sand when asked for assistance to correct the problem. They simply have
too much to lose to be of any tangible assistance. Insisting that their
fellow practitioners fastidiously adhere to ethical standards promulgated
by law will only serve to get them in some serious hot water with their
counterparts. Pointing the finger at any recalcitrant lawyer or turning
the immoral lawyer in on ethical charges is a quick invitation to the
outer Siberia of lawyer land.
As we have outlined beforehand, lawyers heavily depend on other lawyers
for their livelihood and what self serving lawyers are going to cut off
their deal making pipelines? Some lawyers and judges may not like what
they see in the legal community, but getting them to put their own careers
at risk by turning in the cheaters, shysters and miscreants that have
proliferated within their industry is not likely. And any cockamamie
notion of demanding that the legal profession police itself is a joke.
Lawyers acting as sentinels protecting the sanctity of law is how we got
in this mess in the first place, which when you think about it is akin to
putting the foxes in the hen house and thinking everything will turn out
fine and dandy.
After all, the erosion of the rule of law has been undermined to the point
that abuses of the legal system financially assist even the good guy
lawyers. That’s right, the good guys actually derive substantial economic
benefit from being a part of a profession teeming in immoral behavior.
This isn’t as crazy as it sounds. A variation of the principle of trickle
down economics is at work here. The by-products of excessive lawsuit abuse
and the subversion of the rule of law - namely protracted litigation, sky
high fee structures and the assorted perks, power and prestige associated
with being part of the legal community - are conveyed to all who practice
law, not just the cheating and conniving lawyers. With each and every
lawyer receiving some sort of economic or social benefit directly and
indirectly from our screwed up and out of whack justice system, why should
any lawyer bother to rock the boat? So they turn their backs, hold their
noses and continue with business as usual. Counting on the lawyers to wean
themselves from the gravy train is just not in the cards. If we’re going
to restore justice in our legal system, we’re going to first have to
wrestle it away from the lawyers. That means we better get ready to
rumble.
back to top
DON'T
DELAY! ORDER
YOUR COPY ONLINE TODAY! |
|
