One-L Text Books
Barely Used
Barely Used
After a year of law school, that student should know by now that the way you use language is extremely important. And while I understood the intended meaning was probably that the books were in good shape with little highlighting or writing in margins, all I could see was the other meaning that he/she barely used his/her books. I must say I appreciated the laugh, but it would be even funnier if the vendor of barely used legal books did not make the linguistic mistake on accident and was actually in on the joke.
Throughout my one-L blog, I made repeated reference to the fact that legal writing had very little humor and that this is mostly due to the serious nature of legal discourse. Appellate opinions, which make up the core of first year curriculum, are taken seriously by both the parties involved and the lawyers who are in the dual role as advocates for their clients and possibly proponents of a new interpretation of a law. Lawyers can make arguments that eventually have the effect of changing the law, and that is rarely a laughing matter, but lest you think the legal world is void of laughter, I must now revise my previous musings by noting that in the lower echelons of the legal pyramid, there is plenty of things to laugh about: mostly, the utterly absurd things done by clients or opposing parties.
I see this in my tort work and my friends who work in criminal law relay plenty of stories of human stupidity like the oft quoted defense to a police officer finding drugs in one's pocket: "these are not my pants. I just borrowed them." I was working on a case last week where one of our clients was treating with a chiropractic for one accident when he was involved in another accident. This particular chiropractor has the patients fill out a self-evaluation at each session. Our client had filled out each self-evaluation form for every treatment before the second accident, on the day of the second accident, and throughout the rest of his treatment with slight variations on this basic sentence: "feeling better, but my neck still hurts." I have never wanted to be an insurance adjuster more than with this particular file. And the truth is, he may really have been in pain, and he may really deserve to be significantly compensated, and maybe he was just being as truthful as he could be. MAYBE, it is important to laugh at clients behind the closed door to your office in order to safely relieve the frustration of them not doing, or saying, what you think they should in order to make their case the perfect case.
My thoughts are just wandering now, but the types of cases I have worked on so far are far from perfect cases. It takes a significant amount of controlled creativity to make arguments that are both validly based on the documented medical evidence and yet convincing enough to elicit some sort of compensation for our client's pain and suffering. More perfect cases definitely exists. Take fore example the plane crash a few weeks ago in Kentucky, I think. The first suits in that case were filed last week. In that instance you have clear negligence on the part of multiple parties and the government, all of which have deep pockets and are heavily endowed with insurance. That is the kind of case that certainly takes work, but all of the factors are weighing in your direction. At the periphery of plaintiff's work and at the my entry gates into this profession, sometimes all I see is vast piles of absurdity. A good laugh, a good days work, and a good night sleep. I think I like being a lawyer.
Please excuse any unclear prose in tonights post. It is late and I have been studying a lot today so that I can leave most of my books behind when I leave for Colorado on Thursday morning for a wedding. If you don't hear from me before then that means I was successful in my attempts to get ahead in my work, and I left my computer behind.
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