I Fought the Law, and We Both Lost

I recently attended the Christian Trial Lawyer Convention and, suffice it to say, it was long on trial lawyers and short on Christianity. I was genuinely curious as to how the members of this association would square their practice with Christianity and looked forward to a stimulating discussion of how their faith informed their professional conduct.

The conference began with a prayer of the inocuous and self-centered variety which dominates American "faith" today. But after imploring Jesus to bless the cars and planes carrying the yet-to-arrive attendees, there were precisely zero references to religion of any sort for the rest of the conference.

It seemed to me that these lawyers were using Christianity as a justification for their actions rather than as an influence on their decision making. In other words, they live in Bush World, where Christ is a militaristic and, apparently, frivilously litigious figure who can legitmize any crime, any venality, any measure of greed, as long as the offenders utter the name of the Nazarene in the comission of their acts.

And who would Jesus sue? Well, one could make the case that suing pharmaceutical companies that play fast and loose with testing their drugs for deadly side-effects is totally justifiable. (By the way, it would be justifiable even if one had not accepted Jesus as their personal savior, but that's a whole other argument.) But what about ambulance chasing?

One of the speakers, a world-renowned expert on jury selection, told us that one prospective juror had told her, "people like you are the reason insurance rates are so high. I think you're scum". Amid the polite chuckle, I found myself wanting to scream out, "I'm with that juror! All any of you do is wait for someone to have one of the worst days of their lives and then swoop in to try to profit from their anguish!" I didn't, though; it wouldn't have been Christian of me.

I found out after returning from the convention that this woman, who wore a prominent cross during the convention, is Jewish. So, her total contempt for her audience extends from simpleton jurors (these are the kind of lawyers whose biggest nightmare would be a jury of educated people) all the way up to her colleagues, who proved all to earnest to listen to the woman with the garish makeup and the gleaming crucifix. It seemed clear that this person was very good at knowing her audience, but an utter failure at knowing herself.

Aside from all this manipulative and cynical drivel, which in the aggregate made it very clear to me that none of this had anything to do with Christianity, or the law, or, God forbid, justice, there was another very troubling component, and that was the presence of sitting judges, three of whom spoke before the group.

First of all, their mere prescence was completely inappropriate. Even someone who has never set foot inside a law school, such as myself, can see this. Or, perhaps I see it so clearly only because I have never set foot in a law school. It reminded me of my days as a Teamster, when our union officers would go out golfing or drinking with company management. How on earth could it be treated as appropraite for sitting judges, the theoretical paragons of neutrality, to socialize and exchange notes with the very lawyers who practice in their courts? Well, they're all Christians, so not only are they incapable of greed and selfishness, they are also manifestly incorruptible.

What was even worse, however, was one of the judge's statements. "Some days I'm in a law mood", he said, "and some days I'm in a justice mood. If you're looking for one and get the other, come back another day". Again, the polite smattering of laughter gave me an uneasy feeling as this judge essentially wiped his ass with the constitution in a room full of lawyers.

The ultimate, and ultimately unattainable, goal of a constitutional government is to ensure that the law coincides as closely as possible with justice. With men being imperfect, and with justice being undefinable, this of course can never happen, but the pursuit of as close a corelation as possible between law and broad notions of justice is the engine that, in theory, drives our legal system.

Legislators make the laws. As they represent the people, we can hope that they represent the peoples' overarching sense of an approximation of justice. Judges apply the law. They do not apply their own personal interpretation of justice. The reason, of course, is that some people, even judges, have some pretty unjust ideas about justice. For this judge to openly admit that he occasionally is "in a justice mood" is horrifying. It would be like an Army general saying that he is sometimes "in a murder mood". And the audience laughed.

The "come back another day" line, of course, was met with more laughter, and is really about as neatly crystallized example of sociopathic detachment as you'll see. Come back another day? Come back another day, as if you have not waited years for your day in court. Come back another day, as if today was not one of the most important days in your life. I wonder if people who get the death penalty are assuaged when they are told to come back another day.

I learned alot at the Christian Trial Lawyer Convention. The words "Christian", "Christ", "religion", "faith", "law", "justice", "mercy", and "duty" were not uttered. Apparently the opening prayer was enough to preemptively atone for an ammoral appraisal of how to more effectively convince people that the Nazarene would condone their extortions.