I know that quite a few lawyers read this blog. Legal Schnauzer is listed on the American Bar Association's directory of blogs about the legal profession. Some lawyer/readers are friends. Quite a few, I suspect, are foes--the kind who would just as soon see my work disappear.
That's because the legal field operates with a tribe mentality. One of its prime goals is to protect the tribe's peculiar codes and customs--and that includes protecting even its most unethical members. After all, many members of the tribe make handsome livings with the profession operating in its current dysfunctional fashion. They don't want it to change. I'm convinced that someone of modest intellect, with a lousy work ethic, can make a far better living in lawyering than he could in many other fields--as long as he's willing to go along and ignore the sleaze that crosses his path.
Technically, lawyers have an obligation under their ethics code to report any misconduct that they witness. A lawyer I know guffawed when I raised that issue. "Nobody does that," he said.
So it's little wonder that lawyers often become uncomfortable when someone from outside the tribe, such as yours truly, comes along and writes about the kind of misconduct that traditionally is tolerated within the profession.
How do lawyers shoot the messenger? Even before encountering Tom Kendrick yesterday, I had firsthand experience with many of their tactics. They label you a "disgruntled litigant." They say you are just upset because you don't like the outcome of your case, that you "lost" in court. They call you a "conspiracy theorist." They say your charges of misconduct are based on opinion, not facts.
Lawyers have a hard time shooting this messenger, however, because I have presented irrefutable evidence that my charges are based on facts--and actual law, not the stuff some judges make up from the bench. This applies to our reporting about Bush-era political prosecutions, such as the Don Siegelman and Paul Minor cases. It applies to our recent work on the curious domestic-relations case of Ted Rollins. And it applies to our reporting about my own legal difficulties.
On that subject, here is a classic example of why some lawyers, to borrow a phrase from Jack Nicholson, "can't handle the truth"--as it's presented in these posts.
I was driven to start this blog largely because of blatantly unlawful rulings by Judges J. Michael Joiner and G. Dan Reeves in a lawsuit filed against me by our criminally inclined neighbor (Mike McGarity) in Shelby County, Alabama. McGarity's complaint was filed by Pelham lawyer William E. Swatek, who has a 30-year history of unethical conduct, according to records from the Alabama State Bar. McGarity's case was so weak, nonexistent really, that it had to be dismissed (summary judgment) on eight to 10 grounds.
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