# 389, December 7, 2005

COLUMBUS: Headline in the newspaper this week: “Ohio Supreme Court suspends 2500 lawyers en masse”. That’s a lot of lawyers for the criminal element in one state to support, but really, it’s only about 5 percent of the total.

When the other 95 percent heard about the suspensions, their reaction en masse was, “Whew”. (That little joke may not read funny, but you’ll get the laugh if you drag your hand across your forehead in relief as you say it.)

These 2500 attorneys can get back in the good graces of the Supreme Court by paying $500. That’s all it takes.

Ohio collects almost $9,000,000 a year from their lawyers with annual registration fees, and a reporter asked what all this money goes for. They said half of it is to “discipline unethical lawyers” and most of the other half is used to “reimburse clients defrauded by their lawyers”.

Does that seem like a peculiar way to discipline a lawyer? A judge says to him, “You are hereby found guilty of ethics violations. Here’s a check for your share of the $9 million.”

There’s got to be a better way to spend it. If Ohio eliminated the unethical lawyers in the first place, that would save half. Just never let ’em in. And then you would naturally save the other half because there wouldn’t be any defrauded clients that need reimbursing.

Moving on to another subject, Global Warming. Have you noticed how cold it’s been this month. It was 10 above zero here this morning, and it’s cold all across our northern states. I got my own theory on this matter, but I haven’t run it by anyone yet. See, with this argument over replacing “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays” or some such innocuous phrase, maybe the Lord decided to skip December and go straight to January.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

…“I knew cows better than I did lawyers. There is a way of studying a cow and learning all about her, but a lawyer? There has never been any course at college devised where you can take in ‘What Makes A Lawyer Like He Is?’” WA #482, March 20, 1932

…“3500 lawyers of the American Bar Association are here (in Los Angeles), they say, ‘to save the Constitution, to preserve State rights.’ What they ought to be here for, that would make this convention immortal, is to kick the crooks out of their profession. They should recommend a law that every case that went on trial, the lawyer defending should be tried first, then if he come clear, he was eligible to defend. As it is now they are trying the wrong man.” DT # 2789, July 14, 1935