In England there are two categories of legal professionals - solicitors and barristers. Solicitors are attorneys who are hired by citizens to deal with clients. Barristers are not attorneys and usually are hired by solicitors to represent one of their clients who need an advocate in court.

In the U.S. we also have two categories of legal professionals - lawyers and shysters.

Traditionally, shysters used two basic methods of drumming up business because if they had to wait for clients to come to their office they would have trouble paying the rent on the office. One of the old fashioned practices of shysters was to chase ambulances thinking they might arrive at a scene where someone has been injured. Then they could try to convince the person he or she needed an advocate in court because of some bad thing someone else did that caused the injury.

If no one did anything bad that caused the person to be hurt, these shysters made up things to convince the potential client he or she had a case in a court of law. Such ambulance chasers did not enjoy a good reputation and people considering the ability of a lawyer shied away from them.

The other methods those shysters of old tried to drum up business was to hang around police stations and wait for an officer to bring in a collar and get first chance at getting the accused person's business.

Like virtually everyone in old newspaper work I served my time and paid my dues as a police reporter. But back in those days there was one advantage of being assigned to the cop shop. 

Then reporters and cops were on the same side and were friends.

During lulls and running out of discussion topics we would talk about the shysters out in the hall waiting for potential clients. Those shysters were relegated to the hallways because it was apparent their income was insufficient to pay the water bill in their diggings let alone buy deodorant. The reason their income was so low was that most of their clients didn't make enough money hammering out license plates in a  state institution of lower learning.

Today's shysters are much different. They have learned how to utilize the sinful greed that we all suffer from and too many let it get in the way of even acceptable standard of behavior. They get on television, often wearing outlandish shirts and hats and parade some of what we are led to believe were their clients.

In one class of ads, those clients tell how they owed $130,000 in back taxes and attorney Gabriel (Gabby for short) Oughtlough got the IRS to settle for just pennies on the dollars. Now you and I can complain about our taxes all we want but the fact remains that anyone who owes $130,000 in back taxes once had enough money to pay those taxes.

It certainly cannot be justice for all when somebody owes $130,000 in taxes and gets by with paying only $1,300 when most people, despite their griping, pay their taxes. The statue of the lady on the courthouse representing justice is blindfolded. She certainly is if Gabriel Oughtlough can get a guy off with paying just $1,300 when he owes $130,000. I wonder if those guys bragging about getting away with just paying pennies on their tax obligation would brag about getting a reward for robbing a bank.

The other lawyer ad that really makes me want to kick the legal eagle where it hurts the worst is to get folks also assumed to be his clients tell how much the got them in a lawsuits. "He got me $120,000," the guy announces. But if you haven't notice before, the next time you see such an ad, note two things.

First, they never reveal what the grievance was that brought a $120,000 award or settlement.

Second, they never note that the kind and hard working lawyer got at least $36,000 of that dough for maybe as little as five or 10 hours of work.

There is one other thing to notice about those lawyer commercials. The more respected lawyers do not have to produce; direct and star in great TV shows in order to make a good living.

Trivia Time
What was the surprising tactic did attorney Clarence Darrow use in defending Leopold and Loeb in their "thrill killing" of Bobby Franks? Answer to last question. Our Miss Brooks taught English in good old Madison High in the radio-television series.

Contact George Frasher at 337-238-3433,
E-mail frasher@cebridge.net.