Gratuitous Slap at Trial Lawyers

Friday, November 14, 2008

From LegalNewsline, covering the remarks of famed attorney Gerry Spence at the Consumer Attorneys of California convention in San Francisco, “Spence: Trial lawyers more important than doctors“:

“We have to redefine who we are: We are the most important people in America,” Spence said. “There is no other profession in America that fights for freedom, that fights for what America is about, that fights for justice for ordinary people.”

To make his point, Spence — founder of the Trial Lawyers College, which trains lawyers to be more effective in the courtroom — said to imagine that all of the doctors and healers somehow vanished.

“I want to ask you which would be more important: If all of the doctors in the country somehow disappeared or all the trial lawyers in America somehow disappeared?” he asked. “We can live without medical care, but we cannot live without justice.”

Guffaw.

Spence seems to be channeling William Jennings Bryan proclaiming his “Cross of Gold” speech:

Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

Sure, and burn them both down, what’s left? Trial lawyers!

(Hat tip: Ryan Zempel)

 


Posted @ 10:53 am | Category: Briefly Legal | Author: Carter Wood | Tags: , | No Comments

Kudlow on the Market and Presidential Debates

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Did you know the only successful accomplishment of the Bryanite populist movement of the 1890s was to update the old phrase, “Behind every cloud there’s a gold lining?” Really. Debased the sentiment in the process, but what the hell.

In any case, Larry Kudlow always seems to find the silver lining in the dark clouds of the market, swirling as they do. And he provides campaign advice to John McCain, but that’s beyond our purview.

Kudlow:

Another bad day for stocks, which seems to be a habit lately.

Fear is the big factor. Fear over the latest credit-crunch freeze-up in short-term lending markets. Fear over deepening recession. Fear over profits. Fear that Treasury-Fed bailouts — which grow larger by the minute — somehow won’t be enough. And fear that John McCain is going down in a three-house, Reid-Pelosi-Obama sweep that will raise taxes, embrace trade protectionism, end union secret ballots, and spend us into oblivion.

Amidst all this pessimism, permit me three silver linings: First, the strong dollar. Second, plunging energy prices that will generate an economy-wide tax-cut effect. And third, rapid money-supply growth after 18 months of flat money. In fact, on this last pint — which is so important — it looks like the Fed has un-pegged its fed funds target rate and is instead focused on pouring cash into the liquidity-starved global banking system. Meanwhile, the Treasury purchase plan for toxic assets will get off the ground sooner, not later. And the Fed is now backstopping the commercial paper market.

Against the rising tide of pessimism I would argue that these positives are planting the mustard seeds that will grow into the next bull-market prosperity. Believe it or not.


Posted @ 3:27 pm | Category: Labor Unions, The Economy, Trade | Author: Carter Wood | Tags: , , | No Comments

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