Can a lawyer be an honest person?

Does a lawyer have to break the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor" in order to do his/her job?

Of course not.

Will anyone hire an honest lawyer? Or does everyone want the meanest, dirtiest lawyer they can find, to help them win at any cost?

Hmmmm. Of course, some people want honest lawyers. But I'll concede that they are probably in the minority.

Should lawyers sell their souls to make money? That's a matter of personal opinion.

I once heard that 80% of Americans believe that money is a sign of God's approval. Does that mean that they think that everyone who got rich must have pleased God? I don't know. I'm one of the 20% who think that plenty of people get rich by, or in spite of, violating the commandments of God and the laws of men.

Some people think that the killer instincts and illegal and dishonest tactics increasingly found in law school graduates in recent decades actually handicap these individuals.

Steven Keeva thinks that lawyers can find happiness in spite of, or because of, having a conscience. Here is a link to one of his articles,
"Profiting from Experience."

Greed and Abuse of Employees Do NOT pay off for Titan Corporation (now L-3 Communications)

Yesterday I asked this question, "What happens when Titan Corporation goes to war, and its Insurance Company, AIG, doesn't want to pay for injured translators?"

Today I opened the newspaper and found an answer to my question.

The army has ended L-3 Titan Group's linguist services contract, which was the company's biggest source of revenue--around $600 million in 2006.

L-3 Titan says it will lose about 15 cents a share. Wouldn't stockholders have been better off if Titan had spent more on its employees, for example, paying for medical treatment and rehabilitation when they were blinded or otherwise injured or disabled? Perhaps that would have trimmed earnings by 1 cent per share. My guess is that they'd be ahead 14 cents a share if they'd done that.

The US Department of Labor reports that 216 Titan/L-3 employees have been killed in Iraq, more than any other contractor or coalition force except the United States military. 655 contractor employees have been killed in the war.

Private companies are required to carry insurance for their workers in Iraq, and to report claims to the Labor Department. But apparently the Labor Department does not require the insurance companies to pay the claims, if Mazin Al-Nashi's experience (see prior post) is typical.

What happens when Titan Corporation goes to war, and its Insurance Company, AIG, doesn't want to pay for injured translators?

What does attorney Roger Levy of LAUGHLIN, FALBO, LEVY, & MORESI LLP (San Francisco, California) do when his client (TITAN CORPORTATION) doesn't want to provide medical treatment for seriously wounded contractors?

He tries to prove that being hit in the helmet with a bullet from friendly-fire, and being knocked unconscious immediately after with the butt of a friendly rifle, then being pulled unconsious out of a burning Humvee, and left in a tent without medical treatment, HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SUBSEQUENT BLINDNESS AND HEARING LOSS. He claims that neither L-3 Titan Corporation nor AIG has any obligation to continue disability benefits or medical benefits for the wounded man.

This is exactly what is happening in the case of Mazin Al-Nashi of San Diego, who was injured in August 2003 while working as a translator in Iraq.

Mr. Tony Walker, AIG WorldSource's attorney (San Francisco, CA) is also helping these enormous corporations avoid the obligations to employees.

Where, then, do all the billions of dollars that taxpayers gave to TITAN (now known as L-3 Communications Titan Group), and, indirectly, to AIG, end up? Apparently, Levy and Walker think they should end up in the pockets of stockholders and CEOs who have risked nothing for America.

For more information, click on CASUALTY OF WAR link in right column.

The questioning of Mazin Al-Nashi by these lawyers during a hearing on October 23 and 24, 2006 before Administrative Judge Gee was so brutal that Mazin ended up in intensive care shortly afterward. Mazin had no legal representation. His wife is asking for financial help so she can pay a lawyer. Click on the Casualty of War blog in the right-hand links column to learn more about helping the Al-Nashi family.

Some federal judges gave money to Bush after he nominated them

As reported by Salon.com and www.muckraker.org (Oct. 31, 2006), the Center for Investigative Reporting did a four-month investigation that found that six appellate court judges and eighteen district court judges gave more than $44,000 to politicians who were involved in their appointments.

Bumbling and abusive attorneys in San Diego

I'm tracking the actions of San Diego school attorneys. I found an interesting comment about some of them on Shaun Martin's blog. He notes that the California Court of Appeal rightly slapped down their SLAPP suit against citizens in Ramona (San Diego County). Perhaps a law review course at the University of San Diego Law School might be in order for the attorneys at Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz.

Juan Vargas makes our jaws drop

Juan Vargas, California Assembly, 79th District

I rarely agree with the San Diego Union Tribune, but they got it right on Dec. 9, 2006, when they said that Juan Vargas' move from chairman of the California Assembly Insurance Committee to vice president of a big insurance company "stuns even jaded political junkies."

Juan seemed so promising at one time. He got a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School and worked in San Diego as an associate attorney with the law firm of Luce, Forward, Hamilton and Scripps.

Apparently, Juan has finally reached the level where he belongs. Do us a favor, Juan, and stay in insurance. Don't ever come back to politics.

Judge fired for jailing 11 people who were sent to the wrong courtroom

It wasn't the first misconduct complaint against Judge John Sloop, but it was the last. The judge revealed his petty, malicious nature when he caused eleven motorists to be jailed for nine hours and strip-searched because they were late to his courtroom. He refused to take into account that the group had been directed to the wrong courtroom.

The Florida Supreme Court decided that the judge lacked judicial temperament and abused his authority.

The eleven motorists might have spent more time in jail, but as soon as Sloop went on an errand, another judge began paperwork to release the citizens.

(from Associated Press article on December 8, 2006)