I have been reading Fred Rodell's book 'WOE UNTO YOU, LAWYERS.'
Written in 1939 (year of my birth) at 32, he re-published it in 1957, deciding to leave it exactly the same.
What is remarkable about both the book and the man who was Professor of Law at Yale University, it is still so timely, and colloquial. The book's home is at UBC, made available through the interlibrary loan system. I am amazed and thankful of this fully-free service!
His foreword starts: "No lawyer will like this book. It isn't written for lawyers. It is written for the average man and its purpose is to try to plant in his head a seed of skepticism about the whole legal profession, its works and its ways." It ends with: "When I was mulling over the notion of writing this book, I outlined my ideas about the book, and about the law, to a lawyer who is not only able but also extraordinarily frank and perceptive about his profession. "Sure," he said, "but why give the show away?" "That clinched it."
Here are some additional quotes:
"Plenty of people have long suspected that the lawyers with their long words were indulging in nothing more or less than wholesome flimflam, but when it comes down to trying to take the flimflam, with all its myriad trappings, apart, people just can't be bothered. And even a personally conducted tour through the mirror mazes of legal logic becomes tiring and confusing."
Don't I know it!
"Certainly it is only because of their passionate belief in the machine-like and inexorable quality of The Law that non-lawyers continue to submit their disputes and their civilization to legal decree. Certainly too, the law boys themselves are anxiously aware that they must keep up the pretense if they are to keep their prestige and their power."
"The sober truth is that the myriad principles of which The Law is fashioned resemble nothing so much as old saws, dressed up in legal language and paraded as gospel." ... "The Law not only is not an exact science, but cannot be an exact science - so long as it is based on abstract principles while dealing with specific problems." "It would be far too easy to pile up example after example of the nonsense that is legal language." "Thus the whole abracadabra of The Law swings around a sort of circular paradox." ..."No wonder then that the lawyers can never translate their lingo in to plain English so that it makes any sense at all."... "Thus legal language works as a double protection of the mighty fraud of The Law."
"Moreover, the fact that The Law is constantly for sale, and generally to the highest bidder, ties right in to the fact that The Law as a whole is a fraud..... It lies behind all the inequalities and all the injustices."
Rodell's last Chapter: LET'S LAY DOWN THE LAW, opens with Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II line: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
Ah yes, well, all the world's a stage and easy for Shakespeare to say. But really?
"What is to be done about the fact that we are all slaves to the hocus-pocus of The Law - and to those who practice the hocus-pocus, the lawyers."
Rodell suggests the following:
"There is only one answer. To get rid of the lawyers and throw The Law with a capital 'L' out of our system of laws. To do away entirely with both the magicians and their magic and run our civilization according to practical and comprehensible rules, dedicated to non-legal justice, to common-or-garden fairness that the ordinary man can understand, in the regulation of human affairs....."
"It is never easy to tear down a widely and deeply accepted set of superstitions about the management of men's affairs. But it is always worth trying. And given enough support, the effort will always succeed. The difficulty lies only in convincing enough people that they are being fooled."
Rodell actually suggests a civilized and peaceful revolution. Again, he wrote this in 1939!
Please Google this fascinating man, who died in 1980, after writing several other, no doubt informative books.
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Disconcerting is that while so many in our society are under its spell, few are prepared to challenge it. Truth is, these systems are so well dug in, to change them would literally take a revolution. However, people are generally too busy to bother. The work to achieving anything would take gargantuan efforts of organization, whether it is tackling the Banking system, the Police, Insurance, Health, Real Estate, large Corporations, name it, the fine-lawyer-written print ne'er read by any of us absolves them all. So we rather continue to live the hypocrisy of a skewed and corrupt existence.
But with the access and speed of the Internet now, we can reach each other in seconds. This is the Information age, bringing greater awareness at lightening speed. Organization itself is sped up as we can note with the birth of a plethora of well-meaning online run, serious causes.
If they could only band together we might really be able to create a sensible democracy. Sure, we'd piss off the few well-established, but at least we'd be more fair to the masses, while living a more honourable existence. The opportunity to put an end to feudalism? Doesn't it sound tempting?
And hey! We need not kill anyone; merely give them the option to live with cleaner consciences.
And since we would still require their services, giving those professions a more acceptable entitlement by rediscovering a truer more wholesome meaning of life, while managing towards reform and rediscovery of our equilibrium amongst all creatures, we could truly become a better integrated species.
(From Susan Miller's Astrological predictions for a new century: 'The Age of Aquarius'
"Aquarius puts emphasis on group activities and community, thus we have the Internet and the eye of the global village which we call television. Aquarius is a very social sign."
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PS: Continuing to take my time preparing my application against the Minister of Justice,
I am at this stage attempting to receive direct input response from their office.
Acknowledging the office, as if it were "a person," as suggested by the Rules, below, my efforts are as I would proceed/ speak with any 'other' opposing Counsel.
As can be expected, having managed several exchanges (which I am appreciating) the timbre of the office's response is to neither answer my rule allowable questions, nor give me the sense I am dealing with an individual (i.e., I am receiving a bit of a generalized run around by several deputies).
At some point soon I will need to take the plunge, file, and absorb the response.
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CROWN PROCEEDING ACT
[RSBC 1996] CHAPTER
89
(c) the government is
subject to all the liabilities to which it would be liable if it were a person,
and
(d) the law relating to indemnity and contribution is
enforceable by and against the government for any liability to which it is
subject, as if the government were a person
