Essay/Term paper: An argument of the lack of lawyer"s morals

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Argumentative Essays

Manuel Lopez

English 333

Synthesis Paper



I clearly remember one wild and crazy Saturday night, I had just turned 19 years old and was out celebrating with my buddies. On my way home I decided to act like if I was on an episode of "COPS" and was arrested for drunk driving, reckless driving, evading police, resisting arrest, and underage drinking. When I went to court for my first hearing I was facing a minimum of one year in jail, five thousand dollars in fines, and a two year suspension of my drivers license. Right then I knew then that I had to find myself a lawyer and was not going to settle for a worthless public defender. As I was walking out of the courtroom a lawyer approached me and asked if I needed a lawyer. Before I could answer he said he could get my case dismissed and all of my charges dropped for three thousand dollars. He didn"t even know all the details of my case and already knew he could win my case. The lawyer didn"t care whether I was guilty or innocent he just wanted the money for taking my case. This goes to show that some lawyers don"t care who is innocent or guilty as long as they can get paid a good sum of money for your court case. I will show you that some lawyers aren"t interested about who is innocent or guilty all they want is the chance to profit from the case. I have included three cases in this essay where lawyers don"t care whether their clients are innocent or at fault.

The first case I will be discussing is Liebeck Vs McDonald"s. In this case an 81 year old woman (Stella Liebeck) using the drive through window at a local McDonald"s ordered a cup of coffee. While in her vehicle Liebeck spilled the coffee on her lap and groin area and received second and third degree burns from it. With a lawyer on her side she filed a lawsuit stating that McDonald"s coffee was served too hot and it was a dangerous temperature. McDonald"s would not settle out of court because they believed they had proof of negligence on the victim, and would win the case. After a long and timely lawsuit, McDonald"s lost the case and the jury awarded Liebeck 2.9 million dollars. We all know that Liebeck was at fault for spilling coffee on herself, but to the lawyer it doesn"t matter. He saw a big opportunity to sue a successful business (McDonald"s) for a huge amount of money. It doesn"t really matter if Liebeck was negligent. The lawyer just had to find enough evidence to show that somehow Liebeck was a victim. When this much money is at stake lawyers will find loopholes and ways around the law in order to make money. I believe that the lawyer didn"t care about Liebeck"s injuries he was just interested in his commission.

The second case I will discuss is Lucas Vs New York City Transit Authority. This case is about Lucas and how both his legs were severed by a subway train and sued for his injuries. The facts of the case state that Lucas jumped down to the subway tracks and stretched across the tracks. The motorist operating the subway train pulled the emergency break as soon as he saw Lucas, but was unable to stop before severing both of the plaintiff"s legs right under the knees. Lucas then with the assistance of his lawyer filed a lawsuit against the New York Transit. At court Lucas claimed that his actions the day of the accident were involuntary and the result of postictal psychosis from epilepsy. Lucas had suffered a seizure earlier that day and had been at the hospital and didn"t feel well. Lucas claimed that the operator of the subway train was negligent and should be held liable for not stopping the subway train before he was ran over. Lucas had been unemployed for a long period of time, had previously attempted suicide. Lucas had also been drinking alcohol the day of the accident and all the facts described a suicide attempt. I believe that Lucas was trying to commit suicide, but failed in doing so. I don"t know whether Lucas won the case or not but I do know that his lawyer saw the opportunity to sue the New York Transit for large sum of money and did. This goes to show again like in the first case that it doesn"t matter whether the client was innocent or at fault. The lawyer just wanted a chance to sue a large business millions of dollars.

The third case I will be discussing will be State of Florida Vs Miller. This is a case of three young adults (Miller, Baillie, and Cole) having fun and pulling a prank. One night the three young adults after a couple of drinks decided to take down a number of street signs, dead end signs, and stop signs in a specific area. A couple of days later a horrible accident occurred when an eight-ton Mack truck collided with a Camaro carrying three 18 year olds, all killed on impact. The three young adults admitted to taking street signs down in that area as a prank and that could cause them to spend the rest of their life in prison. All three are being tried for this incident. Let me explain how in this case the lawyer for the State of Florida is similar to the lawyers in the two previous cases. Even though the lawyer knows that the three kids were just pulling a prank and didn"t intend to hurt anyone. The lawyer doesn"t care he tries to get the maximum sentence for the case. From the result of this case he will get a huge amount of recognition and could get him more important cases at a later date. He will benefit greatly from this case and that is probably all he cares about. In this case I believe that both parties are victims. The three 18 year old that died in the accident are for sure the biggest victims, their lives were terminated. I don"t believe that the three young adults that pulled the stop sings, ever thought it would cause such a vicious accident. They were just planning a harmless prank like most of us have. If they knew that it would end up on three teenagers loosing their lives, they would have never done what they did. This shows that the lawyer in this case didn"t care about whether the three young adults on trial were innocent or guilty. He was just interested in his personal gain from the case, just like in the previous two cases.

As you can see all of these three cases are very similar. The ones benefiting the most are the lawyers. They don"t care whether their client was innocent or at fault. All they care about is how big their personal gain will be. Whether it is money or recognition the lawyers ended up gaining something from these cases. I believe that all three cases show how greedy lawyers can really be, and are always on the lookout to sue or a great benefit.

When I went decided to hire the lawyer that approached me outside the courthouse. I knew he didn"t care whether I was guilty or innocent. All he cared about was getting my money for the case. The lawyer had two meetings with the courthouse DA and had my case dismissed within a month, when I was clearly guilty. I didn"t even get a speeding ticket out of the whole incident. Lawyers can find loopholes and ways around laws to get cases dismissed of get the verdict they want. This goes to show that lawyers don"t care about who"s guilty or innocent they only really care if they can benefit from it.



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