Wouldn’t Surprise Me

I have a pile of bullets on the way from Oregon Trail (the Laser-Cast people). I had a hell of a time getting load data. I managed to scrounge up a few recipes on my own, and I also contacted Oregon Trail, and they kindly faxed me pages from their old reloading manual. The obvious question is, if they have a manual, why don’t they sell it? As is so often the case when I can’t get a product I want, I smell the fishy, fetid aroma of tort lawyers. I’ll bet Oregon Trail has been sued.

Right now I have an opportunity to do some tort work. My father sometimes works with another lawyer, and this guy has a client who wants to do a case on a contingency basis. I could be useful, because it’s an area of law I know a little about. At first, I was interested, mainly to make my dad happy. But now I don’t want to do it.

If the client was looking to make peace, end the defendant’s destructive practices, and get reasonable damages, I could see doing it. But I think the goal here is to get as big a cash settlement as possible. That’s perfectly legal and ethical. But is it the kind of thing a Christian gets involved in?

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” That sentence keeps rolling around in my head. And we’re supposed to be merciful. How do you reconcile that with contingency tort suits? You can’t. No lawyer ever says, “We got a giant verdict, but it greatly exceeds our actual damages, so let’s give some back.” Lawyers are greedy, and so are clients. They take every dime they can get. It may be legal, but it’s not right.

I should have realized this back when I was practicing full-time. I represented clients who wanted all the money they could get, yet when I had opportunities to sue people in my own right, I chose not to do so. I do not like the idea of putting someone under that kind of stress, unless it’s truly unavoidable. The businesses I sued on behalf of my clients were large, wealthy, impersonal, and guilty, and I still feel doubts about the money we got. I’d feel considerably worse sticking it to individuals. I was stupid to do contingency work to begin with. It was a moral mistake.

I’m glad I got out of contingency work, and I am going to have to get out of the case I’m being offered now. I’m sure there is a way for a Christian to make a living practicing law–mediation, maybe–but sticking people up with a briefcase, as though it were a revolver, is not it. People call lawyers “hired guns.” It sounds flattering, but it’s not. It’s something to be ashamed of. Where do real hired guns end up? On death row, in little cells in which the sinks are also toilets. They’re losers. Pitiable people.

Tort lawyers remind me of corporate raiders in that they let other people work to accumulate wealth and create jobs, and then they come in, take it away, and leave nothing behind. They create nothing of value. They only plunder. When you’re a tort lawyer, and you win, you don’t have to show up to help people vacate their offices. You don’t have to help them find new jobs. All you see is that clean, pretty check, when it arrives in the mail. Never mind what it may represent. That’s not your problem, right? The bar says it’s not. The law says it’s not. It must be okay.

I suppose tort lawyers have made some products safer, but they’ve also made them more expensive, and they’ve prevented great products from coming to market. And they stimulate litigation, which is something lawyers are not supposed to do. On the whole, tort law is a disease, and people who participate in it should be ashamed.

I’m glad I figured this out before spending a long career, raking in ill-gotten loot. I could very well have ended up in that position. I’ve done dumber things.

I don’t know if there is any point in fooling with law. I would truly like to continue writing. I used to be afraid that trying to please God would make my writing worse, but that isn’t true. It actually improves it. It makes it smarter and more useful to the reader. I think my voice will change considerably in the future, so I wonder if my existing work will be of any use in selling work that will probably appeal to a different market. But you can’t make moral decisions based on what will or will not sell.

Anyway, I will not be a bottom-feeding tort lawyer. I have done a lot of crappy things in my life; I don’t need to add that to my resume.