EOC WEEK 2: What do you think of lawyers?

Lawyers are much like doctors, in the sense that many have a GOD complex, or they think that they can walk on water and are better than anyone else. I was a legal secretary for years and believe me, the exception to this rule is rare, but there are a few that exist. When you get into the “meat and bones” of the law and the background research, etc., many common-rule ethics get thrown out the window along with morality. Any lawyer will tell you that emotion also does not come into play when practicing law. One particular case I worked on was the lawsuit against breast implants. Many women had toxic or serious medical issues from the implants, especially when they leaked saline into the body. Some died. In doing the background research into the testing for the implants I found that the manufacturing company had tested the saline by taking terminal burn patients and floating their bodies in a huge pool of saline for many hours a day. This is what they call “safe testing” since the patients were already certain to die, there would be no repercussions to the company that manufactured the implants when they did pass away. How they were supposed to determine whether the saline was harmful or not to humans from this procedure is beyond me.
My other more personal experience with lawyers involves my son, who has been handicapped most of his life. Diagnosed at eighteen months old with scoliosis, he ended up having his first spinal fusion at the age of seven. Understand, this was 1982 and there was no internet to research what doctors told you, believe me, I tried. Faced with the option of having titanium rods placed in his back (which is common for this disease but normally only when the patient is in their teens and has pretty much stopped growing) or having a spinal fusion done, I chose the spinal fusion. I was told this would only have to be done once whereas the rods would have to be replaced numerous times as he grew. Fast forward to after he turned twenty, another spinal fusion, (the second of three so far) rods being put in and taken out and numerous other spinal surgeries, and we were sitting in his orthopedic doctor’s office when he tells us that if the first surgery had been done right, my son’s back would have been perfectly straight. After getting past the horror and anger, we contacted a lawyer. We were not rich and being a single mom since he was three, I worked three jobs to pay the medical bills, so it would have had to be pro bono. We were told that it would have to come down to “the experts” testifying against each other since doctors most probably wouldn’t. Experts cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and can tie up the process for years. When it comes to the law, money talks. Unless you can find the exception I was talking about at the beginning, good luck if you are the common man. My son has suffered a lifetime of pain with no recourse to even go after the doctor that started it all. And it is one of the fallacies of our country that when a doctor or lawyer does something wrong, who judges them? Other doctors and lawyers do. That is why it so rare for either one to lose their license, whether to practice medicine or law. It is the same as having the police investigate themselves, who is going to punish themselves if they don’t have to?