Blackrook
Diamond Member
- Jun 20, 2014
- 21,196
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I don't remember where I read this, but what it said was that we need to say special prayers for cops, lawyers, and priests, because men and women in these professions are daily exposed to evil in a way most people are not.
I am a lawyer and I can verify that this is true. During my 20 year career, I have met the worst of the worst, and sometimes they are my clients, sometimes they are other people's clients, and sometimes they are other lawyers who oppose me in a case, or I meet in some other context.
For example, there is an immigration lawyer in my town who on a regular basis takes a $5000 fee for a case he knows he can't help a client on, then he keeps the fee, tells the client he can't help him, and refuses to return the fee. And this lawyer does this to clients year after year, and gets away with it.
I know about this and can do nothing. One time, a client hired me to get his fee back from this lawyer, and I helped him, and the lawyer, knowing I was a lawyer and meant business, returned the client's fee. But if you don't hire another lawyer to get your fee back, this lawyer will not return the fee he stole from you.
Could I report him to the State Bar? I could, but then they would ask for proof and I haven't any. This lawyer practices immigration law, and the illegal immigrants he rips off are afraid of being deported, so there is no way they will go to the cops or the State Bar and complain they were ripped off. And this lawyer knows it, and knows he will keep getting away with his fraud, probably until the day he retires.
And this is why I'm glad I'm Catholic, because my faith gives me the assurance of knowing that a bad man like this who goes through his entire life hurting people and ripping people off will NOT get away with it. He will go to hell. Unless he repents, of course.
But this is not the worst sort of man I have encountered in my career as an attorney, I have only selected him as an example.
Perhaps the worst man I met was a man I talked on the telephone with. He told me casually, in the course of our conversation, that he had just been released from prison after serving a sentence for conspiracy to commit murder. He told me this in the same tone that a normal man would tell you that is favorite color is blue, or that his favorite kind of soft drink is Coke. He was just telling me a fact about himself and he didn't display any of the normal hesitation or reluctance to tell me that your typical criminal exhibits when telling you about his criminal history. He did not hesitate to tell me that he conspired to murder another human being because he felt no guilt about it. And as I heard this man's cool, casual voice on the phone, talking about a murder he helped to commit, a wave of fear went through my body, even though he was miles away on the other side of a telephone.
Sometimes I meet these bad men only through the stories my clients tell me. I represented a woman from Afghanistan, and her two teenage daughters, who were forced to live with their uncle and his two sons. These sons, who were in their thirties and already married, demanded these teenage girls marry them, and when they refused, they beat the mother and her two daughters with horse whips. The woman finally fell in such bad health that they had to take her to a hospital, and from there, her and her daughters escaped to Pakistan, and ultimately the United States. The 15-year-old daughter, who knew English, told me that Afghanistan was full of men like that. She said, "If you own a gun, you are king of the world." What she told me is that a man with a gun can shoot down another man in the street, and very little will be done about it. Also, women are forced to stay indoors, and are not even allowed to go shopping or visit their friends. The status of women is so low in Afghanistan, that the mother is not even listed on the birth certificate of her child, only the father's name is considered important enough to record. My client had to get DNA tests to prove her daughters were her daughters since the country of Afghanistan did not give official recognition to the mother-child relationship. Afghanistan is an entire country full of bad men.
One man I represented in bankruptcy was a con man who had ripped off so many people he was being sued in court by multiple parties. What floored me is that he had ripped off his own parents, and THEY were suing him. I mentioned to him that his parents were suing him, and he had this hostile reaction in an extremely nasty tone, "Those sons of bitches, I don't have to put up with that shit!" Keep in mind that he was referring to the two people who gave him life. Later I shook his hand, and my hand felt so dirty I immediately ran to the restroom to wash it.
I am a lawyer and I can verify that this is true. During my 20 year career, I have met the worst of the worst, and sometimes they are my clients, sometimes they are other people's clients, and sometimes they are other lawyers who oppose me in a case, or I meet in some other context.
For example, there is an immigration lawyer in my town who on a regular basis takes a $5000 fee for a case he knows he can't help a client on, then he keeps the fee, tells the client he can't help him, and refuses to return the fee. And this lawyer does this to clients year after year, and gets away with it.
I know about this and can do nothing. One time, a client hired me to get his fee back from this lawyer, and I helped him, and the lawyer, knowing I was a lawyer and meant business, returned the client's fee. But if you don't hire another lawyer to get your fee back, this lawyer will not return the fee he stole from you.
Could I report him to the State Bar? I could, but then they would ask for proof and I haven't any. This lawyer practices immigration law, and the illegal immigrants he rips off are afraid of being deported, so there is no way they will go to the cops or the State Bar and complain they were ripped off. And this lawyer knows it, and knows he will keep getting away with his fraud, probably until the day he retires.
And this is why I'm glad I'm Catholic, because my faith gives me the assurance of knowing that a bad man like this who goes through his entire life hurting people and ripping people off will NOT get away with it. He will go to hell. Unless he repents, of course.
But this is not the worst sort of man I have encountered in my career as an attorney, I have only selected him as an example.
Perhaps the worst man I met was a man I talked on the telephone with. He told me casually, in the course of our conversation, that he had just been released from prison after serving a sentence for conspiracy to commit murder. He told me this in the same tone that a normal man would tell you that is favorite color is blue, or that his favorite kind of soft drink is Coke. He was just telling me a fact about himself and he didn't display any of the normal hesitation or reluctance to tell me that your typical criminal exhibits when telling you about his criminal history. He did not hesitate to tell me that he conspired to murder another human being because he felt no guilt about it. And as I heard this man's cool, casual voice on the phone, talking about a murder he helped to commit, a wave of fear went through my body, even though he was miles away on the other side of a telephone.
Sometimes I meet these bad men only through the stories my clients tell me. I represented a woman from Afghanistan, and her two teenage daughters, who were forced to live with their uncle and his two sons. These sons, who were in their thirties and already married, demanded these teenage girls marry them, and when they refused, they beat the mother and her two daughters with horse whips. The woman finally fell in such bad health that they had to take her to a hospital, and from there, her and her daughters escaped to Pakistan, and ultimately the United States. The 15-year-old daughter, who knew English, told me that Afghanistan was full of men like that. She said, "If you own a gun, you are king of the world." What she told me is that a man with a gun can shoot down another man in the street, and very little will be done about it. Also, women are forced to stay indoors, and are not even allowed to go shopping or visit their friends. The status of women is so low in Afghanistan, that the mother is not even listed on the birth certificate of her child, only the father's name is considered important enough to record. My client had to get DNA tests to prove her daughters were her daughters since the country of Afghanistan did not give official recognition to the mother-child relationship. Afghanistan is an entire country full of bad men.
One man I represented in bankruptcy was a con man who had ripped off so many people he was being sued in court by multiple parties. What floored me is that he had ripped off his own parents, and THEY were suing him. I mentioned to him that his parents were suing him, and he had this hostile reaction in an extremely nasty tone, "Those sons of bitches, I don't have to put up with that shit!" Keep in mind that he was referring to the two people who gave him life. Later I shook his hand, and my hand felt so dirty I immediately ran to the restroom to wash it.
