So . . . any legal professionals here?
 

After you all have gotten through calling all lawyers scumbags, I just wondered if there were any lawyers, legal secretaries, paralegals, judges, etc. here.

Besides me, of course.

There are a few of us. I'm a legal assistant who is in management now. I help run a department of ~100 legal assistants for a big patent firm.

Legal assistants? They're the ones that do the work but don't make the money, aren't they?

Something like that.

The truth is the associates work their asses off trying to make partner. They probably work the most.

But yes, legal assistants work hard and aren't paid as much as those with the degrees and bar membership.

Who does the looking up in the law library, the associates or assistants... or is that the clerks?

Sure, but legal assistants also don't have to work the hours that attorneys do. I, for one, am glad.

Lawyers are what make, and keep, us civilized. Without them we are just animals shooting each other in the street.
I find those that complain about them VERY humorous. They cannot know how much the law does for us every day in every aspect of our lives.

Varies from firm to firm and by type of law practiced. In my firm, the student associates and associates do most of the legal research, and the legal assistants come behind them and proof what they have done to make sure there are no obvious mistakes.

Yes, let us give thanks for lawyers that keep everything running smoothly..... except the ones that operate the insurance and medical industries.

glatt: I'm very impressed. That's an important and responsible position. Beaucoup bucks, too! :)

Just so you guys know, I am a paralegal. The term "legal assistant" is going out of style. I have been in the legal support business for 20 years, am a certified professional legal secretary and a certified paralegal.

I have always worked for small firms in general or boutique practice, so I'm a do-it-all kind of gal. I also teach a franchise paralegal course, which I love to do (even though the course itself has a few . . . problems). I have also prepared and presented seminars on legal support staff ethics. "Attorney ethics" means something a little different to me than it might to the general public.

Oh! and I went to the Supreme Court! :D

We lost though--the opinion came down this week. Doesn't matter (to me--to the client it does)--it will always be an experience I cherish.

LOL @ Beaucoup bucks comment!

I help run the department. There's the director of the department (my boss), her secretary, me, and my secretary (who I share with like 4 other people.) But yeah, it's a decent job. I get to do a variety of things. Lots of interviewing and bringing in temps/contract attorneys lately.

Describe that. Not the stuff they report in news interviews. What really goes on in peripherals? What do you see and smell? What did you not expect?

I have powers equivalent to those of a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the Commonwealth, and a very narrow area of legal expertise. Does that count?

I will give thanks to both insurance and medical lawyers.
Make sure if you are griping about them, to never use one under any circumstances.

Use them? They are running the Insurance and Medical industries. The Insurance lawyers are dictating to Doctors how patients can be treated, what procedures can and cannot be used and what drugs may and may not (sometimes must) be prescribed.

So if you get into a car accident you plan on representing yourself if it gets complicated and you are being accused of being at fault?
Insurance lawyer.
Medical lawyers also protect doctors from frivolous lawsuits.

That's not an insurance lawyer. Insurance lawyers run and work for insurance companies.
Medical lawyers work for drug companies, medical suppliers and HMOs.

Or file the frivolous lawsuits against said doctors.

Lawyers on BOTH sides of the fight.

Insurance lawyers also work for policy holders too. Back when she worked, my wife worked with an insurance litigation group that specialized in getting insurance companies to pay claims.

But isn't that a public advocacy lawyer specializing in insurance?
She surely wouldn't want to identified with the scumbags running the insurance companies.


Don't ask how I knew her name was Shirley.

It depends on which side of the suit the lawyer's client is on. An insurance lawyer represents their client, be they the person at fault, the person hit, the property owner if someone hit a home or business, or they may be representing the insurance company.
All deserve representation.

Many, maybe most, lawyers don't get in any lawsuits unless somebody sues them. They do their damage mostly incognito..... or in congress.

My cousin who was also my matron of honour is a barrister for an insurance/investment company. I don't think she's a scumbag.

Since legal representation is expensive, the group she worked with would typically be hired by corporations. Say that XYZ corporation discovered that there was a toxic waste dump on their land, and they had an insurance policy that had vague language that could be interpreted to say that insurance would pay for the cleanup. The group of lawyers she worked with would go after the insurance company to get it to honor its policy and pay for the cleanup.

This type of litigation has mostly dried up though, since lawyers for the insurance companies write more iron clad policies now, excluding virtually everything. The vague language doesn't exist in policies much any longer.

I am not a lawyer, but I am surrounded by them and their professional associates. My dad is a prosecutor for the Justice Department, my fiance is a law school administrator, and my best friends include a corporate lawyer, a corporate legal advisor, a law librarian, and a 1L law student.

I'm amazed at how few "legal professionals" know anything about the U.S. Constitution. I personally know more about it than any Supreme Court Justice to serve in the last 50-100 years. I'm not being facetious or trying to brag. I'm stating a fact based on the overwhelmingly bad decisions they've made (many of which directly contradict the Constitution) and the fact that this court has deemed that they can allow violations of the Constitution when they deem it in the government's "interests".

I love how lawyers claim that my "interpretation" of the Constitution is wrong when I don't "interpret" it, and neither should the Supreme Court. The Constitution doesn't require interpretation. It is written in simple English and it's not vague or ambiguous in any way. It means exactly what it says and nothing more or nothing less.

The Constitution says that the federal government may only legislate or take part in what is specifically enumerated and that the federal government is PROHIBITED from doing anything that is not enumerated. The federal government is PROHIBITED from having "implied powers".

More than 80% of what the federal government does is unconstitutional.

It's a shame so few lawyers can comprehend this.

Radar is a follower of a cult-like school of thought which emphasizes a stricter Constitutional approach, stricter than the strictest strict Constitutionalist you have ever known.

thank you. I deleted my response because I don't wish to be contentious.

well that's no fun, take the guy on

it wouldn't change his mind, but if it makes any difference, we'd all get something interesting out of a bit of contentiousness and radar would actually prefer you to take him on.