I looked into her anguished eyes. She is a local lawyer who, while putting herself through law school, also had multiple children during the three long years of the required legal education process. Now, after having done well with a downtown law firm, she decided to hang out her own shingle. She was lamenting to me that the pro bono (for good) work that she did was taking a toll on her practice and it seemed like there should be a more coordinated program for doing good in our community. She had established a fine reputation in the legal community and was active in the local bar. Oddly, the Oregon State Bar does not have a coordinated, statewide, formal legal pro bono program.
Several years later marital discord interrupted her upward ascent and her ability to cope. Our profession has some rescue vehicles, but there is a well-founded suspicion that these rescue vehicles are also a fast ticket to being disbarred. Observing her plight, there seemed to be few options for one who had literally given their all to the legal profession for very little in return.
A new male lawyer to the profession and to the local community was seated beside me at a bar association dinner. Soon, I learned he had an unusual background before entering the legal profession. He specialized in artificial insemination of farm animals. Adroitly, he located a solo law office in the outskirts of the urban growth boundary near a small town. His mien was humble, his manner infectious. He demonstrated no ego whatsoever. This man was the Everyman of the legal profession. After awhile, his name started to appear in local papers because he was representing the small town in various legal matters with distinction. As the lady mentioned above, he was very active in his local bar association. [There are two sorts that become active in their local bars. Those on the make to be a judge and those who simply want to do good for their chosen legal profession. He was of the latter.]
Several years later, I bumped into him and he seemed preoccupied, though friendly as always. His law practice seemed to be thriving.
There is a burn-out period in the legal profession. That also goes for participating in local bar associations and soon people go their separate ways. Because of this I didn't see him for awhile, then the roof fell in. I learned that the Bar association had invaded his office looking either for dirt or to help him out of dire straits. To this day, I am not sure which. Several months later I made contact and he was very candid with me on what happened.
Both lawyers are the sort that you would like as a friend. Both are a credit to their community and the legal profession. Both were solo lawyers. Both sought to do good. The grand fiction is that lawyers make a lot of money. My guess is that most lawyers who practice alone earn less than $50,000 per year, take home pay. Therefore, there is not much room for error when it comes to just earning a living. Neither lawyer got an award. To the contrary, their reward for entering the legal profession and for doing good was stress and heartache. No one is telling their tale. Our leadership turns silently away. The public is denied these LAWYERS WITH KIND HEARTS, that do good, because of the failure of that bar leadership. Bar leadership give themselves awards (Justice Peterson gets the 'Justice Peterson' award and Justice Carson gets the 'Justice Carson' award!----the outright pandering is ugly) . Otherwise, bar leadership ignores these lawyers with kind hearts and ignores such people across our land. It is a sad picture.
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Step One: A conventional real estate transaction begins with interviewing and hiring a real estate agent. The formal process includes signing of a multiple listing agreement that requires the seller to pay a six (6) percent commission when the house sells. Unfortunately, most real estate agents do not disclose nor formally commit to what actual marketing steps they are going to take in your behalf nor when. In reality, many real estate agents have become cheap and lazy. Instead of significant marketing action of your property, they put up a sign, put your listing on the internet and then retire. The seller is at the mercy of the real estate agent's efforts and timetable after those two events and there is no date except eternity that determines when your real estate is going to sell. An auction gives the seller a date certain.
The auction process begins in Alabama. Sounds a little rough doesn't it? The big daddy's of real estate auctions are J.P. King, Albert Burney and the Redfield Group all from Gadsden, Alabama. There is a guide to Real Estate Auctions on the internet for you to find an acceptable company in your local area. The friendly real estate auction salesperson will come and visit you for free, even from Alabama, but here is where the difference begins.
Step Two: As the auction salesperson will soon disclose, they want to be paid up-front for the marketing expense. In a straight forward residential sale the up-front expense could be as little as $10,000 or as much as $100,000 for a Lake Oswego imperial mansion. The catch is that half their budget is for their office overhead rather than actual outside vendor marketing expense (such as slick sales brochures). That up-front expense should be considered in your negotiations. Auction companies appear to be much more professional about their marketing and virtual tour packages. They are also much more professional about the team approach to selling your property. The auction company also is more sophisticated as to how to entice out-of-state buyers to get interested in your local property.
Step Three: The principle difference between a conventional sale and the auction is the timeline. The auction concept has a carefully coordinated sixty (60) day sales plan with the actual auction to occur about sixty days after you have hired the auction company. They don't want their sale too much longer than sixty days because they key their marketing to the immediacy of the distribution of their marketing materials. In other words, they want the sale to follow within about a month of the dissemination of their marketing materials. Thus, the seller has a date certain for sale of the property.
A significant nuance is the "absolute auction". This is the 'no reserve' sale which means the house will sell to the highest bidder come rain or shine. There are a number of ways to attenuate this, such as by having a 'conditional sale' This means the sale is conditioned on acceptance by the seller. The second alternative is to state the starting bid price in the marketing materials. This is a soft way of setting the reserve in advance.
An actual sale -- The Bar M ranch is a huge dude ranch in eastern Oregon. The family which owned the property had various squabbles and no one in the family could agree on how to market the property. Finally, they sold the property through J.P King auction company from Alabama. The property was appraised at about $2 million dollars, but had numerous capital improvement issues. There were over ten people who qualified for the sale. Three qualified bidders showed up and only one bid for the property. The bid was 1.4 million and sold for that amount. The sellers were happy and the eastern Oregon rancher who bought the property was happy.
Buyer's premium -- Built into the marketing material is a clear understanding that this is an unconditional sale as to the buyer (meaning that house inspections and other 'due diligence' must take place before the auction date). The auction team arrives on site at least eight days before the auction to facilitate 'due diligence'. Also made clear is that the bidders must post a certain deposit to make them qualified bidders. Finally, the materials make clear that the buyer must also pay a buyer's premium of ten percent commission to the auction company when the high bid is accepted.
Thus, the up-front marketing money paid by the seller at the front end is, in fact, the commission payment to the (real estate) auction agent by the seller with the remaining profit for the auction company coming from the buyer under that 'buyer's premium' concept.
These auctions work, they are fun and not as risky as they sound. There are numerous local companies getting interested in this concept in this age of foreclosures. It is important to note, an auction is not a liquidation sale. The auction companies market the property to achieve the maximum possible price, because, after all, their profit is based on the ultimate sale price.
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Where to find the information? The first logical place to go might be the major newspaper, the Oregonian. There you will find only an article where a prosecutor is trying to replace a public defender appointed by the governor. The article points out how seldom anyone challenges an incumbent. You can also go to OregonLive. com-news-politics&elections-voter guide. The next place is the Secretary of State which publishes the voter's guide. Stumbling there one finds out an interesting fact. Certain incumbent judges do not have to run in the primary under Oregon law. Next, one could try the Oregon Judicial Department. They apologize that their website will be revised soon and tell you to go to the Oregon State Bar website. But, wait, aren't they (the Oregon State Bar) the ones who chickened out on judicial evaluations? Moreover, their site -- 2008 OSB judicial candidate voting guide -- is edited by Kateri Walsh who is the PR person for the Oregon State Bar and used to work for the Oregonian. Smell a rat? There is the Oregon Blue Book which provides nice pictures of the incumbent judges. Finally, many judges may be in wikipedia and may be googled by listing their name and the words 'oregon lawyer' or 'oregon judge' in the google bar.
Who is Running? By my count there are 58 judicial positions up for election just now. There is even one Oregon Supreme Court position and one Oregon Court of Appeals judge position open. Sadly, of the 58 judicial elections in play only three are contested. That means the incumbent automatically wins in fifty five judicial elections. How do you know whether they are any good or whether they should keep their job?
My Evaluations: There is a reason no lawyer in their right mind would give you unvarnished information on the worth of the local judge on the record. It is occupational suicide. (I have already died, so I can tell you what I think.) We need a statewide system of judicial evaluations so lawyers can provide that candid information to a neutral body in confidential form. Then voters will have competent information to go on. Currently, Oregon's Worker's Compensation judges receive these sort of evaluations, but they are administrative judges, not elected judges. The American Bar Association formally recommended in 2005 that all states provide a statewide judicial evaluation program for these very reasons. Here are my evaluations:
We work so we can have free time, a vacation even. Consider the simple transactions in going on vacation. What happens if the airlines loses your luggage? Are your rights to recovery and recompense known to you? To what limits? It gets worse when you present yourself at the rental car counter. The Mustang convertible will allow wind to blow through your hair. To read and understand the fine print on the back of your rental agreement will cause you to tear your hair out. Never mind the upselling (do not buy the additional insurance--that is a separate profit center for the rental car companies. Your insurance policy on the car back home should provide all the insurance you need).
Insurance companies were required to put their policies in an EZ read format for their customers in the 1970's. They have backslid some, but that is the sort of reform that is within our grasp if we will only tell our legislators and businesses what we want. Don't wait for a controversy or dispute with the rental car company or airlines to register your indignation at the state of LEGALESE in our lives and in their contracts. Recommendation: Register your protest now by sending a polite letter to each; your local legislator and the first business entity in which you encounter a contract with legalese that you cannot understand. Anyone with a credit card in their pocket or bag is engaged in a commercial transaction in which the ordinary citizen has no idea what the written rules require from you or allow the financial institution to do to you. No one!
There are only two times when citizens normally need a lawyer and don't get one. First, people need a lawyer when they do their wills. Usually a simple will will suffice, but with the proliferation of second marriages, people need a lawyer's help when planning for the next chapter of life. Second, people need a lawyer when buying a home. This is usually the most important time in your life and is the biggest purchase one will ever make (except for purchasing that Hummer!!), so you need a lawyer. Here is where the wheels have fallen off. Twenty years ago, the Earnest Money (real estate purchase) Agreement was one page long. Now it is over eight pages with the most spectacular array of additional do's and don'ts written with indecipherable language. Caveat emptor! There is much Latin that remains in LEGALESE. Caveat emptor means "Buyer Beware". You are buying a pig in a poke (you are buying something in a bag that you are not allowed to see until you have forked over your money). Here is why you are buying a pig in a poke.
There are three components to a real estate sale: The Earnest Money Agreement, the Preliminary Title Report and the Closing documents. These three paper packages cannot be understood by Philadelphia lawyers much less the average home buyer. Consider this -- a 'trust deed', used in virtually all land transactions, is not a deed at all!! It is a security agreement not a deed. These legal documents could easily be put in short form and put in understandable language, but there is no motivation to do so. Why? Because the real estate industry lawyers have designed the first package of documents, the Earnest Money Agreement (EMA), to protect real estate agents. This has resulted in that ridiculously complex real estate purchase contract, the EMA, with LEGALESE of no practical use to buyers. Then the lawyers for the title companies have designed the Preliminary Title Report to protect themselves. Title companies are nothing more than insurance companies and their contract excludes most of what a citizen needs coverage for in a title insurance policy. Finally, the Closing documents are hopelessly complex to protect the interests of banks and financial institutions.
Who is left out of this protection racket? The common ordinary citizen. Trumped-up complexity is the lifeblood of lawyers. This thicket of sharp language is not just confined to everyday commercial transactions. The complex papers devised by lawyers to resolve a dispute over these wordy contracts in court is the next subject for Theories for Legal Improvement.........and Revolution. Watch for the next exciting chapter in how you can rid yourself of lawyers and their hold on society. And I am one.
Each month the Oregon State Bar Bulletin portrays the names, this month there are eleven of them, of Oregon lawyers who, for all practical purposes, have died. Not in the corporeal sense, but one takes away one's life when one takes away one's ability to make a living.
" Here, read it yourself," replied Peter Ivanovich, handing his friend the paper still damp from the press. Surrounded by a black border were the words from Ivan Ilych's widow informing the Court of Justice and his relatives and friends of his demise. "The funeral will take place on Friday at one o'clock in the afternoon." There had been conjectures about his illness that it was incurable, so Alexeev was told he should be ready to fill his position in case Ivan Ilych died. So, on receiving the news of Ivan Ilych's death, the first thought of each of the gentlemen in that private room was of the changes and promotions it might occasion among themselves when Mr. Ilych died.
Roger Weidner has died. He had lived a proper life. He is alive, but dead in the eyes of the Oregon State Bar. Roger Weidner had friends, many of them; family, colleagues who cared about him and cared about his profession as a lawyer. Roger Weidner had served as a public prosecutor and battled corruption in Oregon's court system for years. Now they only speak of him in hushed tones and shun him.
Besides considerations of possible promotions for themselves, Ivan Ilych's colleagues who heard of his passing had the complacent feeling that, "it is he who is dead and not I." They ask not for whom the bells toll even though deep down they know.
LS had died. She is your colleague. She had lead a proper life and was even held in high esteem by most, particularly when she was in government service as well. But, in the eyes of the Oregon State Bar she had stumbled, therefore, the Oregon State Bar wanted her dead even though her only offense was being financially challenged for the nonce. She hired one of your own to defend her and she won. That is a death sentence at the Oregon State Bar and now she is dead.
Each of Ivan Ilych's friends could not help thinking that they now would have to fulfill the very tiresome demands of propriety by attending the funeral service and paying a visit of condolence to the widow. Fedor had studied with Ivan and considered himself to be under obligations to him. Traveling to his house, he was greeted by a mutual colleague who stopped and winked at him as if to say: "Ivan has made a mess of things--not like you and me."
LD had become a whistle blower on an Oregon public governmental agency. The governmental agency wanted to show LD who was boss and reported him to the Oregon State Bar for a conflict of interest since he was a lawyer too and could be considered as a lawyer representing that governmental agency he was ratting out. It was determined that LD's whistleblowing allegations had merit. But, the Oregon State Bar had other ideas. The Oregon State Bar is a public governmental agency too, according to them. Who do you think they sided with? LD is now dead in the eyes of the Oregon State Bar even though he had lead a proper, even salutary life.
Peter was aware of the faint odor of Ivan Ilych's decomposing body. Ivan Ilych, when he was alive was particularly fond of Peter. Peter now observed the body and determined it was much changed; thinner somehow, but as is always the case with the dead, his face was handsomer and above all, more dignified than when he was alive. The expression on the face said that what was necessary had been accomplished and accomplished rightly.
IC is a vulnerable local lawyer who had been nominated to the Oregon State Bar's list of rogue lawyers, but respectfully declined. It cost him almost $100,000 to refuse the honor of being on the Bar's list of rogues. His declination was successful. But the Oregon State Bar is a determined group. They are willing to spend their treasure to insure that these nominations are not declined. IC is not yet dead, but he is fighting the beast again. He is one. They are ninety. Like most lawyers, his treasure is small while the Bar has $1.7 million shekels to spend to kill IC. That is what they want to do. His colleagues turn quietly away even though they sense the odor.
Their names are in the obituary in the Oregon State Bar Bulletin under "Discipline".
I had no computer skills. My computer was simply a typewriter to me. Nor did I have internet skills except that I could send an email and even with an attachment from time to time. After the Bar silenced me and threw me off the Board of Governors, it took awhile to gather my wits. Timidly, I sought out the unmanaged blog sites. They all tell you how easy it is to be a blogger. Conceptually, I could not imagine where in cyberspace this wonderful prose would repose. Gamely, I filled out the template on one of the conventional unmanaged blog company sites, wrote an article, posted it and waited for fame and notoriety to come my way. Nothing happened.
The Google bar is a wonderful thing. You can literally find anything on that simple search engine site. It is so simple to make it your internet tool. It will take you anywhere. That is what I did. It is as easy as putting in your question in long hand or short hand (words and phrases). One way to experiment is google yourself. Then your friends. Then people you don't like. Blog sites come in several flavors and a managed site is the best in my opinion. Managed to me means that there are technical people available to you in cyberspace at the managed blog site to help you get through completing the template These site managers can also help you with the myriad of questions that will come up in this wonderful world of the blogger. Forget the telephone. They answer through cyberspace, so you must be patient. It is worth it. Find a managed blog site.
Next, do a reality check. Are you willing to pull your hair and write regularly something somebody will want to read? It is addictive. In my first year, doing it once per week worked for me. Some do it daily and their articles are a bit thin. Often, they refer you to news articles of moment somebody else has written or other information located around the blog world. Those sites are 'blogging lite' to me but are worth exploring because you never know what worthwhile ancillary blog sites they will send you. Consider whether you have something to say? Is there an audience for what you have to say? The former is more important than the latter to me. If you have something to say, there are people out there that will want to tune in and commiserate. In my first year, there have been over 30,000 unique visitors, meaning at least 30,000 times visitors at least wanted to glance at what I had to say. There are also page (or robot) visits. More about that below.
Domains. The next thing you will want to do is determine a name for your blog site that is unique and compelling. Mine is bulletinsfromaloha.org. I arrived at this name as a spoof on the Oregon State Bar Bulletin, the house organ for the Oregon State Bar AND a play on where I am from, Aloha, Oregon along with the Hawaiian meaning for aloha. By means of a little help from my savvy nephew, I learned that one must register a blog name with sales@godaddy.com. This is a clearing house for domains, or more specifically any name for your blog site that you want to protect. This is a relatively easy process, but be careful on upselling. It seems that each cyberspace vendor wants to know if you want fries with your hamburger. Most upselling is a waste of money. Usually the basic plan is all you need at first.
After registering your domain name, it is necessary that the domain be "mapped". This is to enable cyberspace to direct someone to your blog site. The managers at your blog site can help you with domain mapping. Now you are up and running. The next thing is to find places to have your blog site listed, so others will be able to find you and get tuned in other than your regular visitors that know where you are. A place to start is ORblogs. This is an Oregon blog list that takes all comers. If you want the focus 0f your blog site to be the legal world one has to be imaginative at the google bar, but here is a place to start. Justia Blawg Directory identifies legal blog sites all around the country. Once there you will be in the wonderful world of legal blogging. According to justia blawg there are about 600 legal blog sites around the United States and, believe it or not, only 10 legal blog sites in Oregon. See the opportunity!
There are multiple ways to get your blog site recognized at other worthwhile places. Laura Orr is the Washington County law librarian. She can get you listed at her site which is identified at the justia blawg site by going to the Oregon legal blog list in their directory. Your law school will undoubtedly have a blog directory. Then there are the robots. Once your blog site is listed then feeds can link your blog site to others and your blog will pop up in arenas now unknown to you. Some of this listing must be done by you and some they do once they learn about your fine blog content. And so on. The sky is the limit. Go for it. If I can do it anybody can. Notice that nowhere did I have to resort to the services of a paid blog consultant (unless you count my nephew--but he never gets paid.........). The world needs to hear from you especially if you belong to the weak, the poor, the downtrodden. Nobody else cares in the media about the trials and tribulations of the small-time lawyer. Certainly nobody at the Bar cares. Thus, it is up to you with your own special blog platform. Good luck. If Thomas Paine can do it before the invention of the offset press, then you can do it. Thomas Paine ultimately got over 600,000 hits and it changed the world.
Supreme Court of the United States
One First St. NE, Washington D.C. 20543
Dear Justice O'Connor:
I read with interest the entreaty for citizen involvement to save our courts in your article in Parade last month (2/24/08). Is this a two way street? The reason I ask is because I have written to Justice Ginsburg and Chief Justice Roberts on pertinent parallel issues plaguing our courts with no response. Those letters are enclosed. You look at these matters from the top down. My view is from the bottom up. Way at the bottom.
To Justice Ginsburg: I wrote to her in 2006 that judges in Oregon have no accountability. Indeed, a 2004 proposal for statewide evaluations of trial court judges by the Oregon State Bar Board of Governors, on which I served, was killed two years later by political correctness and lack of enthusiasm by Oregon's Supreme Court. You state that "...the long term solution to the politicization of the judiciary process is education". The primary proponent of Oregon's statewide judicial evaluation program was the public member (nonlawyer) on Oregon Bar's Board of Governors , who was an educator. His reasoning for a statewide judicial evaluation program in Oregon was that the public would have a tool to make an informed vote at the polls if there were regular written judicial evaluations of the judges to draw from. There is already a judicial evaluation program in Oregon for administrative law judges. Why should it be any different for trial judges?
To Chief Justice Roberts: Having recently discovered that judges (and justices) often rule, even in de novo cases, without having read the submissions by the lawyers, nor the cases, nor the record; I protested to the Oregon Supreme Court. They answered me not. I then protested to Chief Justice Roberts in 2007 and he did not respond. This problem is rampant at the trial court level, in the Ninth Circuit and at your level. There is a simple remedy. Each judge (and justice) should affirm in writing before any ruling that they have read the submissions by the lawyers, the record and the cases cited. This would prevent a judge from 'winging it' and gain the respect of the public for the rule of law and our judiciary.
My experience is unique. I have physically worked in every geographical subdivision of the United States as a lawyer. As a lawyer I have been responsible for complex litigation across the entire country ending up as a senior officer of a major corporation on Wall Street before entering private practice. In those thirty years I can affirm that judges (and justices) do not follow the rule of law. Indeed, it is observed that Justice Clarence Thomas does not even believe in stare decisis; that he follows natural law which is not the same as your requirement to follow common law. See Jeffrey Tobin The Nine, Page 102 (2007). One need not even mention Bush v. Gore.
In your article you state that politics is threatening the rule of law in the U.S. today. It is worse than that. Regardless of politics, judges are not following the rule of law at any level of our dysfunctional legal system.
Leaders in our profession treat the unwashed lawyer at the ground level like pip-squeaks. This week Admiral Fallon resigned as the top military leader responsible for Iran among other CENTCOM countries. It is reported that his departure occurred because he stood in the way of President Bush attacking Iran now. In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt along with our CIA under Allen Dulles and President Eisenhower caused a coup to overthrow the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossedegh. Britain's Lord Fraser, First Lord of the Admiralty, in promoting this unfortunate coup to protect their oil concession declared that Britain would not tolerate "...being pushed around by Persian pip-squeaks." The United States and Britain have paid dearly for not adhering to the rule of law and democratic principles when it comes to dealing with pip-squeaks.
Mohammad Mossedegh is now viewed as a visionary who favored democracy and who was opposed to dictatorial rule according to the most knowledgeable historical commentators. Stephen Kinzer, All The Shah's Men, Wiley Press, (2008) President Truman paid attention and supported Mossedegh. President Eisenhower did not pay attention and deferred to the Dulles brothers who had an agenda of their own in deposing him. President Eisenhower should have paid attention.
Thank you for your interest in these matters.
Very truly yours,
Lauren Paulson
In 1893, a small group of self-righteous and greedy people, mostly the grown children of missionaries, decided among themselves to overthrow the monarchy of Hawaii to protect their interest in the island's sugar industry. Immediately after the takeover of the government of the sovereign nation of Hawaii, President Grover Cleveland commissioned an investigation of this unauthorized coup. Following receipt of the facts, President Cleveland issued a report on December 18, 1893 which concluded that the actions of the group, The Committee on Safety, as they called themselves, acted contrary to International and American law. Notwithstanding this formal finding of the injustice done to the people of Hawaii, nobody did anything. Not Congress. Not the American people. Nothing.
The takeover of the Oregon State Bar has been partially accomplished by the following people.
The jury is still out on Bar President Richard Yugler, but why should he be different?
What you can do about it -- Years ago, in the middle of a DUII (drinking and driving) trial, a cadre of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) filed into a local courtroom. One could immediately observe a sea change in the Court's rulings and the jury snapped to attention. The drunken driver lost the trial even though he had been winning before the MADD group arrived.
It is not well known that all Oregon State Bar Board of Governors meetings are open to the public. Yes, even to the lawyers of Oregon. A huge group of concerned lawyers attended the Board of Governors meeting last fall regarding the resignation of Affirmative Action maven Stella Manabe from a distinguished position at the Bar. While it is unclear what the final result will be, I can guarantee you this got the attention of Karen Garst and Albert Menasche, the past President. So, if you are a section or committee head or otherwise part of a group concerned about what your Bar is doing, go online, find out when the next Board of Governors is having their bi-monthly meeting, organize your group, get on the public agenda and raise hell.
When one wanders down the placid, beautiful beaches of Hawaii, one has to wonder how the natives lost their island, their sovereignty and their way of life to a few rich and determined white men not that long ago. And nobody raised hell to correct this injustice.