xtcian

Did you have any idea there were so many lawyers reading your blog?

Glad that Lucy enjoyed the trip. It is time to get that girl a passport and make her an international traveler!

After I backed myself into a corner last night, I read Tregen's post, and I was glad he could articulate so eloquently exactly how I really feel about the legal profession. That is, until I read the part where he said,

"4. Insurance companies - You are satan and no lawyer can defeat you. You are ruining America and the world."

*Silence.*

Ahem. I better go. It's time to get back to my work at Senior Contract Specialist, Corporate Legal Department, at That Insurance Job.

I was SURE I saw Tessa last night during my evening stroll down Bleecker Street...but hadn't visited the blog in a few days so didn't realize you guys were in NYC. Still doesn't mean it was definitely her that I saw (on Bleecker btw West 11th and Bank at about 10:30PM...I live at Greenwich Ave and Bank), but now I know it was possible. Drats for not saying hello.

Totally non-blog related question to you Carolina alum out there: Anyone ever heard of a place in Chapel Hill called the "Dead Mule?" I heard it in a conversation last night as such a cool place to go to (and it was referred to as if it had been there for years and years.) I thought I knew of most places in the town that had been around for a while. Any chance that it is a code word by the Order of Gimghoul (because the fraternity system was not elitist enough for some, so a secret society has to be initiated?) for the Gimghoul Castle? Just curious.

Emma, The Dead Mule is across from Ham's on W. Franklin. I think it's been around about 10 years. It is cool, particularly if you are no longer part of the college scene. It seems to attract a lot of those people who couldn't bear to leave Chapel Hill after college, including losers like me who "foundered a bit in those bizarre years just out of college" and ended up at UNC Law.

Thank you, Joanna. I guess that just goes to show that it has been too long since I was a student at Chapel Hill. As I worked at Ham's in college, I definitely would have known of the Dead Mule had it been there in the late 80s. What an active imagination I have.

based on her scoring the suite in vegas i was sure lucy would get you bumped up to first class. have her work on that smile for the trip back west!!

Missed the discussion yesterday.

The day will come when the lawyers and doctors manage to put aside their differences long enough to team up against the insurance industry, which is not only responsible for most of the wrongs attributed to doctors and lawyers, but which has spent the last two decades enriching themselves by playing the medical and legal professions off against each other.

PS: "tort reform" would seem a lot more like an honest complaint if it did not exclusively yell about bad Plaintiffs' lawyers litigating frivolously. My experience is that for every bad Plaintiffs' lawyer, there's at least one bad insurance lawyer refusing to settle valid cases, and gleefully dreaming of the day when he can take his clearly at-fault insured, a hideously injured, clearly not-at-fault Plaintiff, and get the jury to give the Plaintiff NOTHING!!! The worse the fault and injury, the bigger the triumph.

Laurie from Manly Dorm

Sorry for the cheap shot... it was cheap and easy.

After my old roommate at UNC graduated, a friend of his was taking the LSATs, so on a lark, he signed up and took them too.

Stanford accepted him. He decided to join the Peace Corps instead. Stanford said they would wait.

After the Peace Corps, the went to Stanford Law and got his degree.

Then he started a business, totally unrelated to law and has done very well.

I asked him at one point why he wanted the law degree. His response "I like to know the enemy"

[shrimp in Shark Tale]True Story[/shrimp in Shark Tale]

Amen Piglet.

Does it mean anything that a fair percentage of Ian's regular commenters are attorneys? Me, I like to read and comment because it keeps me sane after wading through Westlaw for that one case that says payment of the traffic ticket is not relevant or admissible against the defendant to prove fault in the subsequent personal injury trial. Serenity now.

In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.

-- Lenny Bruce

well, i'm resorting again to discussion food...since it's one of the best pasttimes i can muster in the middle of a hellish workday.

ian, or for any of you other LA readers out there, magnolia cupcakes aren't as far away as they seem. the owner of toast, formerly the sweet life, on beverly, is a former magnolia baker, and their cupcakes are comfortingly familiar.

;)
enjoy!!

Tremendous post, Piglet. I cannot believe the doctors of this country have allowed themselves to played by the insurance industry that lost ninety cents for every dollar of doctors' malpractice premiums in the high-flying stock market of the late 1990s and now want to make injured plaintiffs and their lawyers pay for their terrible investments. I plead guilty to going to law school because I didn't have a better plan and figured "Isn't this what liberal arts people all wind up doing?" Young parents out there, have your children read "So You Really Want to Go to Law School?" when they one day start kicking that option around. Ian, the Simpsons episode referenced in the title is one of my favorites.

Tregen -- no problem! Insurance companies play a big part in all the drama - I admit it. I have concluded that it is all like one big "which came first - the chicken or the egg?" kind of thing with the lawyer/doctor/insurance company/litigious American dynamic.

I had a falling out of sorts with my ob/gyn over the whole issue. About 2 years ago, there was a lot of hub bub during the Maryland legislative session. Doctors were complaining that the MD medical malpractice insurance rates were so high, that practicing medicine in MD was very prohibitive. My ob/gyn was always on the news, acting as a spokesman for all the doctors who claimed they could not practice in the state and would have to leave MD if the state legislature did not put a cap on med mal claims and the cost of med mal insurance.

Now, this doc would ALWAYS tease me about being an attorney and for working for a big health insurance company. I was always good-natured about the banter -- what choice do I have when my feet are in stirrups during an internal exam? -- but the last time I saw him was right after his legislation had failed, and he had decided to move to FL, where I suppose the med mal insurance rates were in his favor. He was in a foul mood. Telling me that because of "all the lawyers, and all the insurance companies", he would have to move his practice. I told him that I understood his point, but doctors have to pay med mal insurance for a good reason (they are in control of people's health and well-being, after all! There must be accountability -- no?) and given the high doctors fees he was charging, was he really that bad off financially? I thought perhaps that if he could dish out the teasing, then he could take it himself, so I jokingly commented on the big house I knew he lived in and the pricy car he drove. And the expensive Ivy League colleges his kids went to. He commented on the fact that the insurance company I worked for was notorious for not reimbursing doctors in a timely fashion and that he practically had to beg for his money. He also commented that "all the lawyers" were an unethical bunch out to sue the doctors, and that he could not believe I worked at my Insurance Job.

I told him that I thought it was slightly unethical of him to send me (and his other patients) letters throughout the legislative session, warning us that if the legislation did not pass, he would not be able to deliver babies any longer, and that we should call our state representatives right now! so that he would not have to bail on us poor pregnant women. I did not realize he was a politician -- I just wanted to get a yearly pap smear for God's sake! Why the veiled threats? Why the letters? Didn't they go beyond the typical doctor/patient communication? Did he not think that perhaps his letters were a slight invasion of my privacy?

Anyway, you get the picture. I left the doctor's office, upset and unnerved. I have not seen him since, and I picked a random gyn from my insurance directory to replace him. You know, the sad thing is that after my daughter was born, I had sent him a thank you card and gift, telling him how much I appreciated all that he had done for me and my family. Every Christmas, I would send him photos of Helen, with a note, thanking him for bringing this wonderful little person into the world. Somewhere along the line, our nice little doctor-patient relationship combusted, thanks to all of the doctor/lawyer/insurance company hate.

Anyway, sorry to ramble. American culture -- sometimes it just ain't pretty.

Hey Ian, speaking of ugly American culture, have you seen this?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/AUTOS/carreviews/08/15/hummer_h3/index.html

I think that results on http://bnetsearch.com/ it is better than on other web search engines. And what you think of it?