Carcasses and Vultures

OF ALL THE ATTORNEYS AT LAW in the world, one third, roughly, are american. The most prosperous nation in the history of the world is also the most litigious. Go figure.

Anybody can sue anybody, antime, anywhere, for anything. Aint it grand? Grand, that is, for the trial lawyers and tort litigators. "Torts", of course, being the clever shorthand term which refers to medical legal liability lawsuits.

Anyone who has ever read a john Grisham novel is aware that tort lawyers, the good ones, tend to make a great deal of money, tend to fly private jets, own multiple homes, yachts, beamers, and trophy girlfriends. Most tort lawyers are men, surprisingly. One would think that natural female instincts would lead them into this field of law. But be patient. Its still early.

Legal fees, which often run from one third to one half of the settlement, often total in the millions, and the top tort lawyers typically have annual incomes of tens of millions of dollars, simply by hovering like vultures around people who have been harmed by harmful conusmer products and services.

There is a reason why the legal profession, particularly those fields having to do with property and medical liability, thrives best in the most property minded and most expensive medical nation on earth. (doctors do well to, as well as insurance companies.)

Everyone has seen TV ads wherein a somber sounding voice proclaims that anyone who has taken such and such a drug may have been harmed by it, may be due compensatory damages, and really should consider calling the toll free hotline at the bottom of the screen.

These ads are all paid for by class action mass tort legal firms, and they run in the millions of dollars per national ad. Most often, the lawyers get their money back, and then much more, as people living in run down apartments and trailor homes all across america bolt upright as the thought of cashing in by merely making a phone call.

There is no "corporate oligarchy", or "plutocracy", or rich versus poor conspiracy in america. What there is is a mad, desperate, cutthroat scramble for money and property, lawyer against lawyer, corporation against corporation, lawyer against corporation. It never ends. It never will, not until we all file for bankruptcy, as the nation at large probably ought to do immediatley, if not sooner.

Most law school graduates, wet behind the ears and still idealistic, claim to be entering the legal profession for the express purpose of saving the world, or at least improving it. Not terribly long thereafter the money starts to trickle in, then roll in, as idealism withers, and becomes a different set of priorities.

Money, power, reputation. The thrill of the attack, the kill, the huge settlement. Its irresistably alluring, and nobody can resist it. The all powerful mammon. Calls for tort reform, limiting the size of settlements, is a constant tease and temptation.  WE never seem to get around to it. Trial lawyers, who rarely these days see the inside of a courtroom, lobby powerfully.

In a culutre with carcasses everywhere, the vultures are ever circling, waiting...