Bigger Sham Than Global Warming

My old man found out he had to do legal CLE; he thought he was exempt because of his age. So he got himself some CDs, and I decided to borrow them so I could get my own CLE out of the way. I sincerely hope I will never have to practice law again, but this stuff usually costs hundreds of dollars, and I can’t pass that up when there is any possibility that I will want to use my license.

While I give the birds some time out of their cages, I’m listening to some professional do-gooder lecturing on ethics. It is absolutely disgusting. He’s talking about filing charges against people for cussing. And for rudeness. I am not kidding. This is what happens when a person goes straight from law school into a job where his main function is to persecute other people. They never develop any sense of proportion or mercy. This is why bureaucrats and academics are so heartless and tyrannical; they have no idea what real life is like. They can’t be fired. It’s impossible to get them disciplined. So they sit on their ivory thrones, bashing the rest of us with their tenured scepters.

Mercy is important. Without it, life can be unbearable. I have forgotten that many times in my life, and I am ashamed of it. When you’re in a position where you can hurt other people but they can’t do much to you, you have to do your best to empathize. This is one of life’s great moral lessons. I truly mean that. Think about it after you read this. In the age of assertiveness and Internet rage, it’s an easy thing to lose sight of. I have to wonder if this lecturer thinks enough about mercy.

If every lawyer I know who used bad language at the office or in the courthouse got disciplined, I suppose about 5% would escape the mighty sword of the avenging do-bees. The percentage for rudeness would be a little better, but if even one lawyer gets disciplined for something that trivial, it’s one lawyer too many. I mean, sure, if he literally flings dung at other lawyers, he should get a wake-up call. But barring egregious and bizarre behavior, he should be left alone. There is a remedy for attorney rudeness. It’s called “failure.” You lose your clients and go broke. And judges fine you for contempt. I don’t see why the bar needs to turn itself into Henry Higgins.

Law is funny. When we feel safe, lawyers are irreverent. We do things we should not do. We tell dirty jokes. We gossip. We make fun of people. I stood next to a Miami-Dade public defender in court, while he whispered to me, making fun of a criminal defendant who was talking to the judge. No one cares about these things; we know we’re only human. But when these peccadillos come to light in the context of an investigation, we are SHOCKED! SHOCKED to learn that [insert type of bad behavior here] is going on in the sacred halls of justice!

The hypocrisy stinks to high heaven. And I say that as a Christian who is working to cut back on dirty talk and other mischief. I guarantee you, many of the lawyers who, when volunteering to help the bar regulate other lawyers, squeal in dismay over the smallest infraction, behave like mere mortals when no one is looking. This is how life is. There is one standard of behavior for day-to-day life, and then there is another standard when you find yourself under the microscope. It’s completely unfair. Bar associations need to worry about things like fraud, overbilling, and stealing. In those areas, they do a very poor job of enforcement. But this lecturer says he threatened a man who swore and took God’s name in vain. I think he should be ashamed of himself.

On top of that, the lecture is terrible. It’s boring, and it seems to have no point whatsoever, except that the bar has extremely perplexing priorities. If that’s the message, I hear it loud and clear.

I will alway resent being forced to do CLE. My guess, and other lawyers I’ve asked have the same impression, is that the real purpose of CLE is to make money for CLE providers who lobby the bar to impose requirements and recommend their expensive materials. That’s only a guess, but that’s generally how government works. The materials are almost always bad; no respectable lawyer would rely on this garbage to educate himself for the benefit of a client. I would consider it unethical. There is absolutely no way I would sink that low, when a client’s interests were on the line. I could not live with myself, and I would most assuredly lose in court.

This guy asked the recording audience if they thought their law schools did a good job of preparing them for actual practice, including teaching ethics. He asked it in a sneering way, as if the answer could not possibly be yes. His pride is really something, given the quality of his lecture. My answer would have been “ABSOLUTELY.” The University of Miami had its shortcomings, but my ethics instructor was excellent–much better than these ridiculous CDs–and the people who taught me about litigation were competent. I can’t remember the name of my ethics professor, but he ended up clerking for the Supreme Court, and he prepared a beautiful set of notes for his students, and the CD guy can’t compare to him.

Here’s what I always say about CLE, and it’s true: every competent lawyer does CLE every time he does research. Unless you’re utterly incompetent, you refresh your knowledge of the law EVERY, EVERY, EVERY time you handle a case. That’s real CLE. These CDs are useless, and it’s a shame people are profiting from them, and that lawyers are wasting their very valuable time playing them. And when I say that, I am referring to those lawyers who really play them, instead of buying them and putting them in the trash.