WOE UNTO YOU, LAWYERS!

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For the judges will not, if they can help it, go to the trouble of reshuffling The Law’s huge deck of abstract principles in order to reach, and rationalize, a radically different set of practical results. Only rarely and reluctantly will they turn the stream of legal logic in a really new direction. Only rarely and reluctantly will they tolerate, in The Law’s name, far-reaching or basic changes in the manner of adjustment of human problems. Thus not only The Law but the general trend of legal decisions remains the same. And by remaining the same it favors the interests of those who stand to benefit by a retention of the old rules. It favors the conservatives. It favors the rich. Yes, the “socially significant” books about the inequalities and injustices of The Law in action are right – as far as they go. And incidentally, a prominent member of the bar recently summed up a large part of their theme in a phrase when he described the ideal client, the lawyer’s dream, as “a rich man who is scared to death.” But still it is the fact that The Law as a whole is a fraud that lies behind all the inequalities and all the injustices. It makes it worth-while for those with money enough to afford it to buy the court services and the pre-court advice of those mumbo-jumbo chanters and scribblers who can best wring desired results out of legal language and legal principles. It makes it worth-while for those with money enough to afford it to buy their way into court, if the results they want wrung out of The Law cannot be otherwise attained. It is responsible for the myopic inability of most judges to see beyond the one-sided principles they used to use when their own services were for sale to the highest bidders. It is responsible for the inherent inertia, the congenital conservatism, of The Law in action. For if The Law were really the exact and impartial science it purports to be, instead of being an uncertain and imprecise abracadabra devoted to the solemn manipulation of a lot of silly abstractions, none of these bases of inequality and injustice would, or could, exist. The Law is indeed a menace when it works so as to pervert its own boast of “equal justice for all,” when it favors the rich and oppresses the poor, when its results, in the mass or in the particular, seem to be plain denials of ordinary non-legal impartiality and fairness. The point is that even when The Law works, as it sometimes does, so as to produce fair and impartial and practical results, it is nothing but an unnecessary and expensive nuisance. Those results might have been achieved much more simply and easily and painlessly without recourse to the metaphysical nonsense of The Law. And it is the point which the “socially significant” boys invariably miss. The “socially significant” plot has grown stale in the telling. It always revolves around the conventional triangle of the rich, the poor, and The Law. And the villain always walks off with Lady Law in the end. Which is supposed to show 102
that she is a villain too, whereas actually she is only an empty-headed fool who neither knows nor could be taught any better. 103
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WOE UNTO YOU, LAWYERS! FRED RODELL
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Preface No lawyer will like this bo
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good and which are bad, which are a
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average man can find out what is go
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matters-of-factness, once they have
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was suddenly thrown out of court on
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or problem. Of course the truths ar
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Supreme Court might do with part of
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Law to a specific dispute. Whereas
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CHAPTER III THE WAY IT WORKS “…
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involving an Implied Rejection of t
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question of whether there was or wa
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Consideration. It will also, inevit
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though, in any case, any abstract l
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get into a fight over the terms. Or
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Not at all, said the Supreme Court,
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much more cautious when it came to
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should be slow to construe the clau
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practically all Constitutional Law,
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federal government the power to col
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But the Supreme Court, as might be
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Thus it can happen - and has often
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productive investments a tax amount
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declaration the trustee undertakes
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the statute. The opinon accepted an
Page 51 and 52: (Judges and others have from time t
Page 53 and 54: property tax. And indeed the Court
Page 55 and 56: Thus, the reasoning of the Court in
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Page 59 and 60: CHAPTER VI THE LAW AND THE LADY “
Page 61 and 62: The lady’s next two problems are
Page 63 and 64: Finally, after dinner, the question
Page 65 and 66: principles of The Law are phrased i
Page 67 and 68: CHAPTER VII FAIRY TALES AND FACTS
Page 69 and 70: is no such thing as a legal problem
Page 71 and 72: of criminal law. And “Waste not,
Page 73 and 74: and wide-open a choice as if the la
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Page 77 and 78: CHAPTER VIII MORE ABOUT LEGAL LANGU
Page 79 and 80: He will just trust his lawyer - or
Page 81 and 82: No wonder, then, that the lawyers c
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Page 85 and 86: “justice” for granted than you
Page 87 and 88: Constitutional Law and Criminal Law
Page 89 and 90: Perhaps all this discussion of the
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Page 93 and 94: vast majority of law schools still
Page 95 and 96: and justice which the lawyers claim
Page 97 and 98: arrangements and like almost every
Page 99 and 100: with, that The Law is regularly bou
Page 101: The Law, toward the side that talks
Page 105 and 106: problem or squabble that may arise.
Page 107 and 108: themselves have often done it with
Page 109 and 110: knowledge to an examination of the
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Page 113 and 114: the lawyers’ rule; arbitrators ha
Page 115: lawyers, are indeed founded on the
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WOE UNTO YOU, LAWYERS!

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