Wisconsin
Lawyer
Vol. 80, No. 9, September
2007
When the Going Gets Nasty,
When public officials use their bully pulpit to make pronouncements
with no basis in fact that serve
to undermine public confidence in the rule of law, they are undermining
the very system that allows them
to make those pronouncements.
by
George C. Brown,
State Bar executive director
If he
didn't say it first, Ronald Reagan said it most
memorably: "There they go again!"
As part of the State of Wisconsin's biennial budget recently
approved by the Wisconsin State Assembly, Rep. Frank Lasee
of Bellevue declared that we have too many
"ambulance-chasing" lawyers, as he convinced members of the
majority party caucus
to eliminate state support for the U.W. Law School.
Mr. Lasee went on to make pronouncements that have nothing to do with
reality.
"There are too many lawyers in Wisconsin," said
Lasee. In fact, Wisconsin has relatively few resident
lawyers per capita,
with 2.6 lawyers per 1,000 residents, versus a national average of 3.7
lawyers per 1,000 residents.
"We don't need more ambulance chasers," said Lasee. In
fact, even one "ambulance chaser" would be one too many -
that's called barritry and lawyers lose their law license for doing
things like that. In addition, a 2005 survey of Wisconsin lawyers
showed that the top five legal services provided by Wisconsin lawyers
are far less attention-grabbing than the "ambulance chaser"
label suggests: preparing wills, preparing power of attorney
documents, preparing deeds, assisting with real property sales and
purchases, and preparing articles of incorporation.
"We don't need frivolous lawsuits," said Lasee. This
is yet another straw-man argument that ignores the reality that
frivolous lawsuits routinely get thrown out of court, the parties and
their lawyers can be fined, and the lawyers can face discipline.
Moreover, a new report on litigation patterns released by the
United States Chamber of Commerce ("Lawsuit Climate 2007: Rating
the States"), ranked Wisconsin among the 10 best states overall.
"And we don't need attorneys making people's lives miserable
when they go to family court for divorces," said Lasee. Well,
to paraphrase the mantra of another organization, "Lawyers don't
divorce people, people divorce people." We all recognize
that divorce can be one of the most difficult of all legal matters for
the parties and the lawyers, but I doubt that cutting funds for the
law school will make those difficult cases any easier.
Mr. Lasee has said that he just wants to bring attention to an issue
that is important to him. But raising an issue is one thing
and launching misleading attacks on thousands of dedicated Wisconsin
lawyers who are doing precisely what society asks of them
is another.
Our country was founded and has become great, in large part, because
we cherish and advance the rule of law. It is by no means
a perfect system; every lawyer and every judge can offer a list of
improvements. But when individuals, especially public officials, use
their bully pulpit to make pronouncements with no basis in fact that
serve to undermine public confidence in the rule of law, they are
undermining the very system that allows them to make those
pronouncements.
Wisconsin
Lawyer