I went to law school in my late twenties because as a child of a blue collar worker, the law still held the allure of respect, riches, and opportunity that I would never have gotten as a teacher or insurance salesman.  Law, Medicine, and Education back in those days were the automatic tickets to professional validation and upward mobility.  I think one of those professions took a huge step backwards this week and not for the reasons you may think.

People go to law school for a variety of reasons but one of them is not because they couldn't be hair stylists.  They go because Law School and a Law Degree provide you with The Big Key.  The Big Key opens doors for clients, opens opportunities for the lawyers, and opens doors that should've never been opened in first place.  The Big Key gives you the power and authority to both right wrongs and wreck havoc in the lives and businesses of your friends and enemies.  When a lawyer shows up with his Big Key in a court house or Congress, locks start springing open.  When an insurance agent shows up they just get asked to submit a proposal. 

The real difference between the legal profession and all others is that the lawyers over time have designed the system to just work specifically for them.  Anyone who has been involved in serious litigation knows that there aren't any real rules or laws except the ones that the lawyers make up or twist around or the ones the Judges choose to enforce.  In between finding that out as a plaintiff or defendant one spends enough energy and time to create an entire democracy on the other side of the planet and almost enough money.

What started out as a profession that was designed to keep things in balance and mediate demands between two parties both absolutely convinced of the correctness (and rightousness) of their positions, has turned into an industry which has legitimized extortion and intimidation with the result that neither safety nor security for property, person, or possessions exists.  Spitzer and "Dickie" are great examples of  my point.

No Attorney General mastered the art of doling out pain and thoroughly enjoying it as much as Spitzer.  Using an obscure law, the Martin Act, Spitzer brought down the full force and wrath of the legal profession's unlimited resources and pocketbook .  He was fond of saying in negotiations that he had the Martin Act and  all the government's assets at his disposal.  Like Brando in the God Father his entire strategy was built around making them offers they couldn't refuse.  It wasn't that the financial services industry didn't have some house cleaning to do it was just that Eliot's house was as dirty as theirs.

"Dickie" used a combination of southern charm and fried chicken connections to get entire pieces of legislation retroactively written to create his own version of the Lawyers Full Employment Act.  In the process he made himself obscenely rich as well as all his closest friends.  It wasn't that the Tobacco Industry wasn't deserving of what happened to them.  Phillip Morris and RJR are nothing more than the Cocaine Cartels with great commercials.  Any one who doesn't get that Joe Camel is like crack in grade schools deserves the young smokers they get but not the children they have.

"Dickie" bribed judges, lawyers, and legislators in one way or another to create his enterprise of opportunity.  The court system went along with him because of the pathological intellectual capability that lets you represent a pedophile in the morning and do a child custody hearing in the afternoon both with the same demeanor.  The legal profession works off fictions and precedents that build a basis for decision making that a grade schooler who has had his marbles taken unfairly by a bigger kid would understand  the unfairness of immediately.  While the legal fictions and precedents make the jobs of lawyers and decisions of judges easier to make, they do nothing for the confidence or security of those relying on them.  Trial lawyers are for the most part bag men posing as crossing guards.

What the common person has seen this week is what Winston Churchill meant when he said that democracy is the worst form of goverment unless you consider all the others.  The ordinary persons  intuitive belief that the system is rigged has been reinforced this week on a national stage with what we know now were just two bit grifters.  It's the kind of week that suggests that just loading up your gun and going down to the corral is just as effective (and perhaps more final) in dispute resolution as filing complaints and the costly briefs that go with them.

The real problem here is that both of them thought that they were above the law that gave them their power and opportunity in the first place.  They both abused discretion, connection, influence, and statutes to feather their own nests.  One for the Governors house in Albany and the other for a beach front home.  Our problem is that we let them.

 Both of them are the epitome of the adage that absolute power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  How fitting that a business known as the Emperors's Club did one of them in.  It's the reason being King is a really good job and being God is even better.  It's just that when you are going to act like God you really need the wisdom and mercy and compassion that the job requires.

Shakespeare's admonition in one of his plays "First, let's kill all the lawyers" isn't really necessary anymore.

It's apparent from this week that they're killing themselves.