Righteous Rebellion

After practicing law for 28 years, I am heartened that I hear many clients making the same statement, "I really want to prevent this (harassment, discrimination, retaliation) from happening to someone else." It is that shared resolve so common among my clients that humbles me and makes me proud to represent them. Sometimes, after hearing the rhetoric of the Tea Partiers, after seeing Big Business impose it's agenda of greed in state legislatures and in Congress, after fighting companies for years at a time to simply get justice for an injured client, I wonder if I am helping my clients make a difference.

Today, I read my Facebook page and saw a posting from Eric Vernon, a friend and fellow Kansas City lawyer. He posted an article from Yes Magazine, which I find to be profound. In this article, the author talks about people who courageously make a difference. Perhaps there is hope.

I am frustrated now because I have a client who is kind, caring and good, and gravely injured because of the carelessness of an international corporation which is under-insured, which may have procured the insurance through fraud, with principals who evade justice by liquidating companies and setting up others. This company is the epitome of greed. Each insurance company, defendant and defense attorney is evading responsibility for this wonderful man's grievous injuries. I still believe that most people are good and just and that justice will prevail, but it may be several years and I grow frustrated.

Then I hear and read about the shenanigans in Congress, where some members are hoping to
enrich the coffers of the wealthy on the backs of the poor. I grow frustrated with the
Missouri Legislature and the attempts to restrict human rights. I grow impatient and want a peaceful righteous rebellion to combat the greed inherent in many corporate cultures.

It is hard to be patient. I try to be empathetic and I fail. But, even with all of the evil in the world, in places like Darfur, Rwanda, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, I must believe in the fairness and goodness of people and I must be patient. Gandhi once said, "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." Thank goodness for courageous people such a my clients who fight the dirty drops in the ocean.