"First kill all the lawyers"; it's not an abstraction in Pakistan
Todays New York Times has a stunning account of the systematic intimidation, beating and imprisonment of the lawyers in Pakistan who are protesting the attempt to impose martial law by Pakistani President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. 
Too often we in America make jokes at the expense of attorneys or look at "the trial lawyers" as a political foe. The fact is that in a free society it is the diligent and sacrificial work of trial lawyers that often are the difference between justice for the ordinary citizen and injustice at the hands of a legal system that increasingly is tilted to favor corporate interests at the expense of individual rights. One look at Pakistan and the effort by a despot to try and silence opposition by beating, jailing and intimidating lawyers brings us right back to the King Henry VI where in " Dick the Butcher" utters his famous tribute. I do call it a tribute as it is evidence that from the earliest days of democracy it was evident that for a tyrant to succeed he first had to destroy the rule of law and silence the lawyers who could speak out against their actions.
I also want to draw you back to a video we shot earlier this year in which Rick Kuykendall and Jan Schlichtmann in which they start out discussing some new and innovative ideas in mass torts, but then evolve into the ethical issues facing trial lawyers and the political climate that they operate in today. This passionate discussion refers to the Henry VI quote as well in the context of how lawyers are regarded in America and how corporate and political interests are working hand in hand to intimidate and exhaust the trial lawyers in America so as to give them a free hand in litigation in both state and federal courts.
If you care about the US legal system, justice and access to the courts you might want to take another look at this video that I have sitting over on our Yahoo site for the Legal Broadcast Network. It's only 11 minutes but well worth watching as a reminder that while lawyers in the US aren't being beaten and gassed by police, but that there are other means of intimidation that are often more subtle but just as deadly to the cause of justice.
The LBN Team
in Legal Issues and news
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