Avoiding Responsibility

I had a very interesting conversation with a bloke at the pub the other night. He was giving out (an Irish term for 'saying less-then-complimentary things about someone/thing') about that old conversation favourite; lawyers.

As a person schooled in the dark arts of litigation, I have encounter this on more than one occassion. And my view is pretty simple, and its one that I am sure those of you who work for the police would understand; everyone hates them, until they need them.

Take this particular bloke for instance. I won't repeat the facts of the case because, quite simply, it was pretty dull (a petty criminal matter). Anyway, there wasn't one positive word about his lawyer that came from his mouth all night. But this was the amusing part (for me anyway). After listening to his version of events (and he would obviously portray himself in the best/least culpable way), it was pretty clear that he was, in lawyer speak, fucked.

By my reckoning (and I must say that I am not up on the jurisprudence of this area of Irish law so I'm speaking from a somewhat observational point of view here) he must have been looking at about 15 years jail time, and yet there he was sitting on a bar stool next to me. From what I gathered, and the weaseling that his lawyer had done was by far one of the greatest pieces of 'getting someone off on a technicality' that I have heard.

The thing I loved most though was that this bloke, after escaping a prison term by some sheer equisite lawyering, was then giving out to me about how much the lawyer was going to cost him. After I put to him (in *very* gentle words) the cost/benefit analysis of paying a lawyer a couple of thousand euro to not spend the next 7-10 years of your life in prison, he still couldn't grasp the concept that he was only a free man because he had hired this lawyer.

The real clanger for me was something along these lines: 'why does the c**t what to take me money anyway? He's got plenty already, should see the beemer that he drives. Should go and steal it, then he'd have sumthin to spend me money on ay!?!' So what your're saying then is that this lawyer doesn't deserve any reward for getting you out of prison, and even if you do pay him, he should suffer the inconvenience of having his car stolen to make him appreciate the money?

Ahhh, there's a reason I didn't go into criminal law - at least in the corporate world, the criminals there won't begrudge you your beemer!