Almost three years ago (July 13, 2006) I was riding in a car driven by a friend. When we came to a stop, we were blocking a drive way and within seconds, we were struck in the passenger side by a motorist backing out of her long driveway in her mid sized SUV. Yes, I was injured, and I am still having medical issues, but that is not what this blog entry is about.
Here in Oregon, you must sue the drivers and then their insurance companies will pay for and supply the defense attorneys. I had to sue my friends. I don’t like that but, again, that is not what this blog entry is about.
It is about a legal system that has lost its direction. I am the injured party, I am the plaintiff or so I thought.
I am under attack by TWO insurance companies and their hired guns. Over the last three years I have had to hire THREE different law firms. The first ‘team; I caught lying to me, not once but many times, so I fired them. That cost me 6 months. Then the next firm I hired admitted that they forgot about me for six months, and once I realized that I had been misplaced I made them assure me we were back on track. Empty promises. Again, I had to kick them in the ass and once we finally got to the depositions, 2 years 5 months later. At the deposition, they discovered a conflict of interest and dropped ME. I found out from a letter from the judge, the attorney never called me, never sent a letter to me or even sent an email to me.
After interviewing three other firms, I finally hired one that I think can handle this mess. Lets count the number of attorneys I have dealt with. The first firm; 3. The second firm; 4. I interviewed three more firms; 5. I hired the last firm; 2. The opposing firms:2. That is a total of 16 attorneys - so far.
It has taken almost three years to finally get to deposing me. To say that these attorneys are kind and understanding and just making sure we are all on the same page, is, well it is wrong. They are arrogant and belittling, they are threatening, literally. They are accusatory and abusive. They questioned my integrity and made innuendos of pain medication abuse.
In the FIRST deposition of me, the second one is not even scheduled yet, there were both opposing attorneys and they had no less than 18 inches of documents about ME and they made sure I knew it. This initial deposition, which lasted over three hours, I was questioned about my past in general, my job history, my driving history (I was the PASSENGER!), my personal life, my married life, my professional life, my social life and a bunch of other stuff that has NO bearing on this case. In three hours they only got through the 70’s 80’s and up to the mid 90’s. We still have the balance of the 90’s and the half dozen years past the millennium. There will be more days of deposing me.
Now that I have set the stage, here is some of the attorney “crap” I have witnessed.
Each attorney that I have worked with scare the hell out of me. They brag about their conquests and strategies. Some of the ’strategies’ they employ may be legal, may be ‘ethical’ for attorneys, but I don’t feel they are moral.
During the breaks taken in the depositions, all the attorneys tell war stories about how they have screwed opposing parties (HELLO, I AM SITTING HERE!), laugh and tell stories about how judges and clerks toss out paperwork (to what end I am not sure, they thought it was really ‘cool’ and ‘risqué’), how they hood winked judges to get a particular ruling…
Now, the one of the things that bugs me the most is that my attorneys seem to be as bad if not worse than these two legal Neanderthals. Actually I have two, one is a previous judge, one is on the Bar association ethics committee (is that an oxymoron?) and thinks he is soooo righteous. He is just as arrogant if not more than the previously identified legal Neanderthals.
So, where does that put me. I hired them because I knew I needed a bigger ass(es) than the opposing ass(es). Am I perpetuating this spiral into moral oblivion?
There were 1,143,358 lawyers in practice in 2007 according to the American Bar Association. According to the U.S. Census there are 225,081,715 people 18 years old and over. That is 1 in 225 of American adults are in my opinion “bottom feeders”.
Just for the fun of it, I counted the cars coming towards me on the freeway, it took under 90 seconds to count 225 cars. Assuming there is only one person in the car, I passed about 40 attorneys an hour. Doesn’t that just make you feel safe and all warm and fuzzy inside?
I am not sure what I am going to do. It has turned out to be a moral issue for me. I am hurt, it will probably never completely heal, I am not suing for money, just medical expenses, I am in the right, but I feel I am in the wrong employing these attorneys.
I will let you know of my decision soon.