You need a lawyer
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- You need a lawyer
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1939
- Subject
- Law firms
- Offices of Lawyers
- Lawyers
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- IfWhy not a legal clinic in Manila? YOU NEED A LAWYER THE average man is likely to shy at the mere suggestion that he needs an attorney to guide him through his conventional pattern of existence. Lawyers, he intimates, are sharpers, and, having delivered this judgment, he goes blandly away to buy, sell, borrow, and lend, and to promise to do other things which bristle with legal risks and which may very well have a trickster as the party of the second part. But, when any of these activities leads him to be come enmeshed, he may be heard crying in the wilderness. Why is this? Well, the basis of our friend’s complaint is that he might have gone to a lawyer in the first place—if he had not been afraid of the expense in volved. This fear is often based on painful fact, for almost everyone knows some unfortu nate flouter of fate who has been charged from $50 upward for the settlement of a minor legal matter. About five years ago this sit uation in New York City im pressed me as so serious that I organized a legal clinic to fur nish legal advice at from $1 (mostly $1) to $10. I do not handle litigation, but a large business has developed with peo ple whom I am gradually teach ing not to take the slightest step in unfamiliar fields without first learning what the legal conse quences may be. A crippling disability com pelled me to withdraw from ac tive practice after over twenty years at the bar, and this en forced separation from my for mer activities gave me a new perspective. Perhaps this situa tion impressed itself on me while I was still a busy lawyer, but it was not until I was forced to stand on the sidelines that I realized its full import—that a tremendous number of people who need it go without legal protection only because it is too expensive for them. I com menced to talk with some of them, and out of these contacts grew the idea of this new de parture in the dissemination of legal advice. The clinic serves only persons in the lower income brackets, and therefore it does not divert any business from attorneys dealing with clients who have the means and foresight to pro tect themselves with informa tion. I am glad to say that the New York County Lawyers’ 10 Panorama Association has recently gone on record as endorsing the general establishment of legal clinics, and similar enlightenment among lawyers at large will hasten the day when clinics will be available in adequate num bers. One of my recent clients was a janitor who bought a car in order to take his wife and chil dren to the country on week ends, and it can be imagined what delicate budget balancing had to be carried out to make the transaction possible. My client was swindled by an unscrupulous dealer who talked him into purchasing what the dealer represented— verbally, of course—to be a 1936 model. The janitor trad ed in his old car and signed up to pay $300—$100 down, with payments of $ 10 monthly. Driving the car home, he thought it would be a good idea to stop at the sales agency of its manufacturer to check the date, and on doing this he was told his machine was of 1934 vintage. Returning to the sec ondhand dealer, the janitor made his protests, only to be told to look at his bill of sale. Sure enough, that paper stated that the car was a 1934 model. The janitor insisted that the deal be called off, and was calmly told that the car he trad ed in had already been sold. The car in question was not to be seen, although the janitor was given the freedom of the place to look for it, and of course the old trick of moving the car temporarily to another dealer’s lot had been worked once more. While there was no chance for the legal clinic to protect this client from the effects of his own gullibility, it did pro vide him with sufficient infor mation to enable him to protect himself if he takes another ven ture into secondhand land. When a prospective buyer con sults the legal clinic he is ad vised to insist that the out standing claim of a sales talk be included in the bill of sale (and they would be, if the deal er felt he had to do this in or der to retain the customer), thereby leaving a great deal less chance for deceptive automotive oratory. Whether all secondhand deal ers are rascals or not is beside the point. What the legal clinic drives home to the average man is that, without decent legal pro tection, he cannot hope to guard himself against being outdone by people who make a living from sharp practice; and that is knowledge which is mighty valuable for $1. The trouble is that, up to now, through its high-hat attitude, the bar has made it prohibitively expensive February, 1939 11 for the average man to get hold of such information, and the superficial philosopher might even work around to the prem ise that the bar is derelict in its duty to the public it professes to serve. Is it possible that here tofore the bar just did not care? Anyhow, the action of the New York County Lawyers* Associa tion is the first official gesture toward doffing this high hat. The clinic’s clients are people who have no money to waste, and it is a pathetic thing to lis ten to the stories of harassed widows, worried small shop keepers, deluded leaseholders, and young married couples who are having their faith in human nature shattered by the skuldug gery of some schemer. The le gal clinic’s service is frankly more preventive than curative, and I am glad to say that my clients return again and again for advice before making an un familiar move—or, better still, making an unfamiliar promise; for that is what many legal commitments often are: artisti cally worded promises. Consider the regular install ment contract. How many pur chasers realize that down in the small print lurks a joker which not only makes it possible for the seller to repossess the article if payments fall behind but con tinues the purchaser's obligation to pay the full price even after the retaking? Legal clinic clients also know enough to get informed and un biased advice about life insur ance. They have learned that the cost of insurance varies with the kind of policy and that many of the more expensive policies, while furnishing pro tection, are luxuries which they cannot afford. Small businessmen’s troubles do not rate headlines, but they seem the most important things in the world to the victims when they visit the clinic. Take the case of a furniture dealer from a little town who came in to discuss a check on which pay ment had been stopped. The furniture man’s nextdoor neighbor was a grocer. Late on one Saturday afternoon a suave individual had been driven up to the furniture store in an imposing car. This party bought $200 worth of furni ture from the overjoyed dealer, who envisioned future sales to this person of wealth. When the customer proffered a check for $250 in payment, the deal er promptly exchanged his own check—drawn to Cash—for the $50 difference. The customer stepped into the grocery next door, bought a few dollars’ worth of provisions, and to pay for them offered the furniture man’s check, which the grocer 12 Panorama knew to be good and promptly cashed, giving the stranger $45.50. In the course of time the $250 check came back, and the furniture man immediately stop ped payment on the check cashed by the grocer; hence the former’s trip to the legal clinic. Nothing could be done to help him, as the grocer had cashed his check in good faith. One of the clinic’s clients was foolish enough to purchase an old-fashioned watch in an outof-date case, and, when his friends laughed at its lack of style, he tried to get his money back. The jeweler refused to oblige, because the condition of the watch was such that the cus tomer was perfectly well able to judge it for himself; and this interpretation of the transaction was perfectly just. Another trusting client, how ever, temporarily dazzled, in vested in an imitation gold watch which he thought to be genuine. Although the jeweler carefully refrained from saying anything that would create a false impression, our client was successful in having his money refunded, because the watch was not what it appeared to be. Remember these two instances the next time you buy anything. And there you have the rea son for the legal clinic. So many things the average man promis es to do are not what they ap pear—are not what he imagines they are. The buying of a dia mond, a fur coat, or a little car; the leasing of a store; the pur chase of a home; the bequeath ing of a small estate—events that spell sacrifice, love, and en terprise—can be made instead sources of disappointment and heavy loss. Up to now the bar has been too busy balancing its high hat at the fashionable tilt, an angle that kept its eyes from seeing the average man with on ly a few dollars to spend.— William S, Weiss, condensed from Forum, February, 1939 13