This week, Canadian Lawyer magazine published a list of the best and worst judges across the country and editorial writers have been lining up to condemn the legal profession ever since. Judges, the newspapers say, are in the business of dispensing justice. They shouldn’t be involved in popularity contests to win the approval of lawyers.
But maybe we’ve been a little too quick to jump at the throats of the lawyers. Because, after all, they’re about to get as good as they’ve given. Next week’s issue of The Average Joe magazine, coincidentally, will carry an article about the best and worst lawyers in the country. Following is a sample of some the ones the magazine says are the worst.
Mr. Bob N. Weeve
The lawyer who said his client didn’t mean to toss his best friend over Niagara Falls, arguing the accused had been momentarily overcome by an attack of Rushing River Fever, an obscure disease which grips its victims with a terrible urge to throw other human beings into large bodies of water.
Ms. Sue De Panzoffum
The lawyer who acknowledged that, yes, her client did confess to stealing 47 television sets during a one-night wild spree of break-ins, but who went on to argue that when he was a boy, his parents abused him by denying him his own television in his bedroom. He finally snapped and was simply acting out the juvenile anger brought about by this childhood deprivation and which had been festering inside him all these years.
Ms. Bea Leevit-Iffucan
The lawyer who said that, incredible as it may seem, her client was indeed sleepwalking when he got up in the morning, went downtown and bought a gun, hijacked a bus, shot up the town, took four hostages, burned down city hall, stole a car and smashed into the mayor’s house, finally waking up in the cruiser on the way to the police station and saying, “Hey, wait a minute. What’s going on here?”
Mr. I. Deltok
The lawyer who said that, while it was certainly a rotten shame that Junior had blasted Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Sis, Rover and his poor Aunt Bessie out of their beds in the middle of the night, to punish the unfortunate, misunderstood lad for his one, momentary mistake might rob him forever of the feelings of dignity and self-worth which he would need in his struggle to carve out a useful life for himself.
Mr. Bill E. Dinghart
The lawyer who said it was pretty evident to him that most of the people with whom young Brutus Bilgewater had had anything to do with in the past five years before he blew up the courthouse had been guilty of name discrimination. Studies show, the lawyer said, that less than one-tenth of one percent of all jobs in Canada are held by people named Brutus and an astonishing 99.9 per cent of all jobs are held by people of other names. Quotas are needed, he said, so that by the year 2000, every employer with more than 10 employees has at least one Brutus on staff.
On the bright side, the best lawyer award went to Ms. Dawn Toourth, the solicitor who told her clients to quit their scrappin’, forget about suing each other into the poorhouse and go home and grow up.
At least that’s what she told me when I wanted to sue my neighbour who I saw peeing behind his shed in broad daylight, thereby robbing me of my ability to enjoy my property and probably contaminating the groundwater in the area.
I really thought $50 million might ease the distress.
©1989 Jim Hagarty
