Should Elizabeth II be Canada's Elizabeth the Last?

Then how do so many afford LA?

 

Quiet desperation.

 

There can be money in so-called Family Law aka Divorce Court. One reason is that the competition isn't as fierce as you might think. The second reason is that, given sufficient hurt and rage on one side that spreads to the other, the cost is no object. That's where the granite heart comes in, though. You cannot take a divorce unless the couple has money for you to take. You turn down the ones that really need legal help. You take the midnight client phone calls and bill them for a couple hundred each. You require a minimum retainer balance and withdraw from the case the instant the balance drops below that level. It's brutal. One of the best divorce lawyers I ever knew had no conscience as far as I could tell. If you could pay, you got first-rate representation. If not, not.

For serious money grubbing that's a little less emotionally demanding there's personal injury. That's where you see all those billboards along the highway. But those firms have a secret weapon for success. They turn down any case that is smaller than a certain amount. That eliminates 75% of the calls right there. (Again with the granite heart.) If a case has to be tried, the money red line goes up. There's no money to be made in the court room. Unless...the Golden Ticket walks in. That happens but not often and you have to recognize it for what it is while not falling for Fool's Gold. Since you front the costs and your fee is contingent on recovery, you MUST pick 'em well. That's a skill that I don't think can be learned. But IF you choose well and IF you have the resources for a multi-year fight and IF you get a little lucky you can make millions. If not, you're bankrupt.

For the exceedingly capable but totally unimaginative (but still granite hearted) lawyer, there's insurance defense for a decent regular income. You can start a firm and hobnob with a few insurance adjusters. Keep your nose clean and don't take any plaintiffs' work. I guarantee some insurance company will send you a few small cases to try you out and if you do well and keep the hourly billing down they will send you more and larger cases to defend until you are protecting insurance companies from paying the widows and orphans their due. (Or what they CLAIM is their due; both sides lie.) That's hourly of course, no big paydays, but the companies pay. They might disallow a third of your billings but they pay the rest, cash on the nail. That's how you keep your firm afloat.

Finally...there's no money in criminal defense. Fun, yes, but no money. Perry Mason really couldn't afford Della. But at least he didn't need a granite heart!

 

What Wigmore said of cross examination can be applied to civil litigation as a whole..."From the clash of lies the truth shall emerge!"

 

I wasn't born with a granite heart - but I developed a classic one through years of being a debt collector -and all too often, it made itself known in my personal life. It feels a little weird to speculate on ways I could have made more money from this dubious "asset." Weirder still, to enjoy the speculation. But I have. And I thank you for the opportunity to reflect and shine a little light into this very dark corner. It's been a valuable and cautionary exercise.

 

I have a good friend that is a lawyer. His clients are mostly companies. He's a patent attorney. He doesn't have to deal with the downsides mentioned, like the granite heart syndrome. In large part because his clients aren't desperate, I'll guess? The corporate lawyers that worked for companies that I worked for also seem to have pretty decent jobs?

 

Patent attorney? I figure that's the easiest job in Russia. You get ALL your work from the country's most prolific inventor, Comrade Reguspatoff. (Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.)

 

Sure, that's where the real money is but to do that kind of work means you likely have an engineering degree, probably should have gone to a top 6 law school, worked for the Patent Office or clerked somewhere in the D.C. Circuit and were an associate at a Big Law firm. Not all of this is absolutely necesssary but most successful patent attorneys check most of these boxes. In-house corporate lawyers usually started at a top school and worked in Big Law for awhile. These paths aren't open to most young lawyers.

 

Oh, if your heart is harder than GRANITE, you can become a collections attorney. There's usually a faint odor of burning sulfur in their offices!

 

My lawyer friend took a different path. He first got a PhD in plant pathology. He didn't want to work for a company developing insecticides and fungicides. He spent a few more years just doing research at the university. He wasn't very interested in teaching so he ended up getting his law degree. So actually he was never a young lawyer.

 

For a moment I was thinking -Thanks for the endorsement but, I get it now. You're referring to Camilla's Prince. I'm a big fan of Simon Winchester. He's an American now. In his book 'Outposts' He discussed many far away subjects would love to be British. Others not so much. The people of a few of these Outposts, perhaps just Gibraltar and Las Malvinas (Falkland Islands) Were privileged to maintain British Citizenship. Then there is the Commonwealth. I nominate Admiral/Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji to head the Commonwealth. He was a staunch Monarchist until they though him out. Events of December 5, and all that Then there is Scotland, a nation that will always be British, as it is located on the island of Britain. Oh! if I somehow by divine right became leader of the Dominion of Canada, I would instantly put Leonard Nimoy's portrait on all currency.

 

Because it's a natural move for a Massachusetts native.

 

There, there, CF. I'm sure you aren't any more villainous than most heads of state either.

 

My first College enrollment was at St. Joseph's College in Northwest Indiana. Not too far from Uncle Janko's and Jimmy Clifton's old hangout, Valparaiso. My French teacher, an old Society of the Precious
Blood Priest, and native New Yorker,used to tell us great stories. My favorite was about the time he and a few French Canadians were conversing with a few Parisian priests. One of the Parisian priests Said to be
Québécois - ' please let Raymond speak for all of you, for we cannot understand you.