TO WIT: THE ORIGIN OF SPECIOUS
Well, there it went, another year galumphing of into the past like way too many before it. And like way too many before it, last year's end was accompanied
by the same end-of-year e-mails I always get, carrying the same end-of-year messages: charities seeking donations, florists suggesting posies for my "special lady," Canadian pharmacies suggesting Viagra in case flowers alone don't cut it anymore.
And just as I can count on those epistles, so can I rely on the year-end arrival of the Darwin Awards, that allegedly factual annual compilation of really stupid human conduct resulting in really stupid fatal or humiliating injuries to those involved. It purports to be a culling out of the weaker-minded from the human herd by the process of natural selection. It's almost certainly facetious, but Im' hoping not. Herd-culling of any kind makes it so much easier for me to find good parking.
Yet it seems to be a compulsion of my ilk, and others like me, to mull things over at year's end, and the 2009 Darwin Awards stirred up plenty of grist for my mull. Is there a similar process going on in the practice of law, I wonder? Does this explain why over the years some
colleagues have just suddenly disappeared from the scene? They haven't died; they haven't retired; they've just vanished from the profession. Could a similar process of natural selection be eliminating them from the practice of law because they aren't good enough, smart enough, clever enough to survive as lawyers anymore?
It certainly would explain the results of some recent judicial elections. A quick call to our bar association's executive director produced the names of a number of colleagues who have in
recent memory left the profession. A few more discreet phone calls to other col- leagues provided sufficient information to support the theorem. What follows then si a list of those lawyers and the facts sur- rounding their respective departures from the profession. Of course, I've changed the names for reasons of privacy. I've also changed the facts. Otherwise the folow-
ing accounts are completely accurate.
Dumont "Dewie" Fields. An eminent-domain specialist, he spent years pushing his theory of the "de otto" taking, arguing that condemnors must compensate condemnees for property they ought to have taken. “My biggest mistake," he admitted when interviewed at the car wash where he now works for steady wages, "was
taking al those cases on contingency fee."
Shirley Ujest. A family law sole practitioner limiting her practice to gullible, wealthy physicians in brief, second marriages with no minor children and iron- clad prenuptial agreements, she made the mistake of representing two doctors in the same practice, billing each one more than 1,800 hours in the same year. At her hearing before the bar association's Unbelievable Even for Us Committee on Billing, she was asked why she thought the doctors wouldn't figure out she was charging more billable hours than there are in a year. "Yeah, my bad," she said. "I should have represented only one and billed him 3,600 hours. But don't worry. I won't ever make that mistake again. I promise."
Pariah Jones IV. Upon receiving a phone call from a client requesting a status report on his personal injury claim, Pariah looked at the file and realized the statute of limitations had already passed. Hoping to dissuade the client from further action, Pariah said, "But I told you I needed a $5,000 retainer before I'd file suit." Pariah said at his disbarment hearing, "So what your'e telling me is that when the client came in with the check I shouldn't have taken it, right?"
Claire De Loon. Graduating first in her class, Claire had it firmly entrenched in her heart and soul that all clients were truthful, al lawyers were honest, al judges were smart and everyone entitled to it got justice. Her condition first became apparent to the court when she was seen to be smiling excessively at her swearing in. She was disbarred six minutes later as suffering from existential jubilation and thus psychologically unfit to practice law. It's a career brevity record likely to stand for al time.
Let me take this opportunity to wish al of you the very best for this year.
It promises to be a year of joy, of peace, of prosperity and of goodwill, provided of course that you survive.
© 2010 By S. Sponte, Esq.