Thursday, April 20, 2006

Let's Kill all the Lawyers

Coronation of Henry VI
Nice print depicting the coronation of Henry VI

Old Bill Shakespeare certainly had a point when he wrote in Henry VI (Part 2) "...the first thing we'll do, let's kill all the lawyers...". I've had cause to interact quite a lot with the legal profession lately and while I've got no personal cause for complaint other than the sheer expense involved, other friends and colleagues certainly do. Consider this:

Recently, old crony, Mel, turned up to a court hearing only to find that it had been posponed at his lawyer's request. This would not have been quite so irksome in normal circumstances but Mel had a broken leg at the time and hauling himself around was a non-trivial task. Quite naturally he telephoned his lawyer's office and complained about the lack of communications to a legal assistant. A little later Mel received a call back from his lawyer who apologised profusely for the situation. For a brief period Mel thought that perhaps attorneys had an undeservedly bad reputation. But then he received his statement of account and found he'd been billed for his lawyer's apologetic phone call!!

As the saying goes, "lawyer, rope, tree -some assembly required".

(Feel free to share lawyer stories).

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