Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Trapezohedron]

Indeed. Many organizations barely do things pro bono, and even then, there's usually a catch. With a case as common as we're having, there's probably a very low chance they'll do it for cheap or nil.

With that being said, we don't have much choice, and as long the chances are non-zero, there's still room for hope.

[Truean]

[Note: Though I am a licensed practicing attorney, I do not solicit cases over the internet for numerous ethical reasons, even then the person in question probably isn't even in my jurisdiction. If you live in the Untied States, I might be able to refer you to a public defender's office, or other comparable legal assistance, though I can truthfully promise you no results, I might be able to refer you. I fear this is the best I can do].

In response to the above and below quoted posts:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fuckin' great.

Our Attorney decided to back out on our case, because we didn't pay their (law firm) fees. First off, they agreed to our deal of paying them ala installment plan, since we're barely scraping money off our backs. But we weren't able to pay on time, and that attorney being a greedy bastard, decided not to wait for a little bit longer until we can pay. The kicker? They didn't respond to our text messages, asking whether the case was greenlit or halted. They also were disrespectful, having us go around to file the papers to where it needs to be, instead of them doing it themselves. They were practically slacking off on their asses waiting until someone showed the cash before doing anything. They didn't do anything, aside from making an affidavit, and that's just that.

The real kicker? We probably can't get the 15kphp we just spent on the bastards, because of them making the aforementioned affidavit. They told us to grab our papers there and go, since they're not going to handle the case because we weren't able to pay.

I must mention that the case hasn't actually started yet, and there are still no reports from the fiscal whether they'll take the case or call it a false one. And those bastard attorneys, they're also trying to use scare tactics to make us reconsider paying them. They don't believe we don't have the cash, and even then, those bastards barely move without waving a bunch of $doughy$ treats right in-front of their faces.

Also, their rates totally rip people off. 5k per attorney, even if you didn't hire the other attorney.

Seriously, those greedy bastards... I want to exact revenge against them... if only I knew of a way that doesn't involve killing or doing something that's illegal...

Weren't there cheaper attorneys?

We didn't have a choice. My mom, at the start of the whold fiasco, was illegally detained in a local police station, so we had to ask others (namely my brother's girlfriend's family) for help and find us an attorney to free our mom from prison. Illegal or not, she was detained, and we needed someone with power to release her there, namely an attorney.

We planned to change attorneys before the deadline arrived, but the attorney we were looking for was going to america for some kind of business meet up, and he would return way past the deadline, or simply put, the time when we couldn't submit our side of the story to the court. We were forced to go through, we practically went bankrupt within a few days of that fiasco.

For a time, mom was jobless, and she's the only source of income we have, so no income. We were struggling until she got another job. It didn't help much, though, since her workplace, for whatever reason, was somewhere about 1 hour's drive from home. She doesn't use any other transport, aside from a taxi, for fear of her belongings being snatched from her by thieves, being held at gun point, etc. Her transport fees from here to there, and back? At least 500php, or a whole day's worth of pay.

We're stuck in a rut, right now... but I think we'll be able to go on. Mom said there are free voluntary attorneys in an organization somewhere.

Doesn't lessen my hatred against those greedy bastards...

Does your country have a public defender option?

Well, I guess so, but they probably are inexperienced, and/or are not dedicated to their clients. Not that we have much choice about that anyway...

I just hope everything will be smooth sailing, but I might get Murphy's Law'd if I keep my hopes up.

For what it's worth, I really do feel bad for you as an attorney who practices criminal defense (who is far from rich). I see this every day, both in criminal and civil cases, and I hate it. I stopped counting the times I've had to stand down because of costs. What people, through no fault of their own, fail to realize is that the system of paying for attorneys in the United States itself is broken and harming not only clients, but attorneys themselves. I've been saying this for years here.

The issue is people can't afford to buy and I can't afford to sell legal representation as it stands at a reasonable price. There's no justice in denying you justice, but my student loan debts from law school and college are more than a house and the payments more than a mortgage. (And I did things rather economically at a state law school. Could've cost more). Nevermind paying the secretary, the office rent, copier costs, and time I don't get paid for "marketing," or chasing cases, etc. It's a crapshoot and we're too busy trying to cover costs to actually practice law most of the time.

A lot of people "make too much money" to get an appointed public defender, who are poor as hell. Moreover, given these costs, the "inexpensive" lawyers around here charge $200/hour. Think about that, 8 hours in court a day plus an hour or two beforehand to prepare, you're looking at $1600 (8 x $200) to $2000 (10 x 200) per day in court plus about a day or two beforehand to research and write motions and probably more.... How the hell are people making $10/hour supposed to pay that. (note: no question mark). Practically, that means they have to work 20 hours to pay for one of mine (before taxes). It's clearly unsustainable for everyone involved.

This is why I someday really truly do wanna start that plan of mine to charge people approximately $50/month for all the attorneys fees, legal advice tax preparation, and record keeping they need. (jack shit I can do about court costs and expert witness (medical) fees, but still...). I'd probably have to do something to keep people from ripping ME off (a la, signing up for this for a year, dumping their problems on me and then bolting). The idea of a 300 family per lawyer "insurance risk pool" (actually "True Retainer," but meh) would just work better for everyone. There was a time when I could've commanded a huge salary at a large firm, but I was the one who believed, "liberty and justice for all." I saw abuses of the system and railed against them. I haven't forgotten why I went to law school. This is why it's somewhat saddening when people hear about my idea to make legal representations affordable and call me a crook when I'm talking about charging people in a year what other lawyers (in attorney fees alone, not court costs) would charge in a couple hours.

Compare this to:

5k per attorney, even if you didn't hire the other attorney.

I can't tell you how furious, sad, and utterly depressed I feel when I have a good case and opposing counsel knows it. He also knows I can't afford to fight him and he wins on that basis alone.

If Justice is only a luxury for the rich, then is it still Justice? Can you be poor but virtuous, or is the mere fact of being poor a vice? .... I fear we've given the wrong answers to these questions in the U.S.

P.S. If you are in the United States, please feel free to instant message me for a referral to a county public defender's office. Again, I'm sorry that this is the best I can do. If you are not in the United States, then I'm afraid I know very little if anything about the laws of other nations....

Edit: I'm guessing from your using "500php" you're from the Philippines. I'm sorry. I know nothing about Filipino Law....

[Trapezohedron]

Law's pretty much the same here, but like you said, I'm over here at the Philippines, so yeah, can't ask you for help. Anyway, thanks for the sympathizing post; made me feel better and while it might be hard for me right now, I'll persevere and get through this.

The bastards were asking for too much a pay, and while they might possibly not have a ton of cash with them, the part where they try to scare you, delay you, and otherwise ignore you when you don't stick a bunch of cash in their faces puts me off.

Not to mention the sarcasm and their making-light-of-the-whole-situation gig...

Once again, thanks for the post.

EDIT: True, people also tend to complain about the exhorbitant costs here and there, but in my case, they decided to quit even when we already paid them approximately 35% of their fees. It sucks when people you hire withdraw even if you invested a ton of money on them already. But I guess a job is a job. But then again, they have a ton of contracts here and there, they can't possibly be poor. They even said that "if the client is rich, we'll drain them of their funds, but if the client is really poor, we'll offer our services at a reasonable amount." That's kind of a dickish move. Also, to further augment the 'they're not poor statement', a lot of people use their other services, such as photocopying. In fact, just about every 4 minutes or so, they get a client that uses the photocopy service, which is 10php if I recall correctly.

I can only conclude that they're just greedy bastards.

Why is justice a luxury nowadays...?

[Urist Imiknorris]

Why is justice a luxury nowadays...?

Because someone got the bright idea that it could be sold.

[Truean]

Why is justice a luxury nowadays...?

Because someone got the bright idea that it could be sold.

Partially agreed. However, when you demand someone go into debt 6 figures to be a doctor or lawyer, you can't expect them to work for nothing. I really do want a find a way to provide justice to everyday people. It is mind numbingly difficult though.

[JoshuaFH]

Damnit! I'm just encountering so many things to make me come to this thread for, and that's not a good thing.

Apparently, I'm a moron at filling online applications. I filled an online job application recently, I heard they were scheduling for interviews sometime in the future. So I wait, and I don't hear anything for like two weeks, and it's becoming very near the time that was hinted that interviews would be held... so I email them again asking what's up and they tell me that they CALLED me. Like, on the phone. Am I stupid or what?! I had completely forgotten that they might do that (Because seriously, fuck phones), I had assumed that they would email me back with the relevant information. This was the worst assumption ever apparently, since they called my home phone, since apparently I was naive enough to just be the completionist that I am and give it to them when it was asked for without thinking why, and I'm basically never at home for any reason. Now all the 'slots' for interviews are full thanks to that mistake... there goes that highly prospective opportunity. FUCK!

And it WAS highly prospective, most everyone that knew me, and knew that place, said that I should've been able to get in. Easy.

And my superviser was nice enough to give me a review of how well I'm doing at work, since I'm just kind of a paid intern, and I'm not sure if I particularly like the opinions they've formed of me.

Apparently though, this is what I gathered from our vis-a-vis meeting. That I'm not working to industry standards. "What does that mean?" I'm not working fast enough or hard enough. Snapping is used as a visual cue to how fast I should be jumping on the tasks I'm given. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but this place is kind of slow-paced and laid back and I'm not tossed things to do nearly fast enough to justify jumping from first to fifth gear over every little thing." Then I should be looking for things to do, if people aren't supplying me with them. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the first few weeks I was here, that was exactly what I did. Things to do just aren't generated fast enough, and I just kind of fell into the rhythm of things." Then I'm asked if I've considered that my superiors just didn't want to overwhelm me, that they withhold on giving me things out of some misplaced sense of generosity. Through this, however, there's some sort of attribution fallacy going on where they assume that I'd be overwhelmed if they let me handle everything, therefore I must actually be that incompetent.

I wish that my inferiority complex didn't automatically kick in whenever I'm meeting with my superiors, and all I can do is just agree with everything they say as my mind panics and scrambles for PC responses that will somehow save me. I hate that I'm so instinctively servile and debasing. Either way though, that's damn damaging to my pride; Do I just have some aura of childishness and naivete? That I need to be baby'd? Take me serious!

She tops it off though, saying that if I were to be given a grade, I'd get a B or a B-, and if the school actually had enough money to hire somebody else into my position, they probably would. That hits fucking hard when I go for so many weeks and I think I'm doing well, and I get to the end of my temporary position, then they go "And here are all the mistakes you made Josh! Your welcome."... I kind've hate myself, because I'm not sure if I'm actually incompetent or not, compared to the rest of the world.

I wonder if any employers looking me up would be able to find all the little rants I've done here?

[Duke 2.0]

 I stayed after class because my professor wanted me to attend a Gang seminar with him. Normally not a problem, the bus service should drop me off at home at around the same time.

 Except it broke down. Twice.

 Two separate buses on my way home conked out. I know somebody is gonna quote that thing said earlier in the happy thread about superpowers inherited at the very end of a deadline, to which I reply Haha jokes on them, I don't have jack squat to do at home. Suckers!

[The Merchant Of Menace]

Nah, you'd have had to carry it through the entire route, then deposit it at the depot.

Your incredibly manly power would prohibit you from just stopping at your destination.

[Flying Dice]

Torrential downpour + a hole the size of a quarter in the heel of my shoe + standing in the rain for an hour because the person who normally opens didn't show up. A depressing situation for a depressing day, I suppose.

[Vector]

1. My irresponsible logic professor.

2. I can't date Fishhead.  He's too damned stupid.  That isn't to say that he's stupid.  I just seem to be a bit out of his league, and it doesn't help that he reminds me of my ex-boyfriend, or that I seem to already be familiar with everything he has to offer, or that there's no way in hell he'd ever be able to help keep me in line.  I'm not saying I need a man to help "take me in hand."  I'm saying that if I don't have someone to bicker with, I'll end up with all my thoughts like hamster teeth.

Feh.

[JoshuaFH]

I'll end up with all my thoughts like hamster teeth.

The highest echelon of analogy right here.

[SalmonGod]

I'm saying that if I don't have someone to bicker with, I'll end up with all my thoughts like hamster teeth.

One of the more interesting things I've ever heard a person say about themselves.

I'm pretty sure I understand, though.  I wish I'd known this better about myself 10 years ago.  This is a large part of why I spend so much time on forums, and this place is the best for it.

Edit:  Just caught up with this thread

I have a pretty violently shifting personality.  I'll spend a year building and building something, and then I'll throw it all away and toss myself into some other pursuit for two years or more.  And that's part of what's happening right now.  I spent a year building a life with these roommates of mine, and now it's time to abandon it and go somewhere else.  The room of my mind is full of too many things to move forward.  I've learned some rhetoric, and soon enough it will be time to move on, back to mathematics--but first, a little dabbling in translation theory.

It's so odd to me.  I spent so many years trying to develop good judgment, to be a solid, stable person, rock-like in nature, and now it's suddenly become abundantly clear that I am not that person in any dimension.  And where I thought I was building crystal spires, it seems instead that I've been making wind chimes.  College has not moored me, but extirpated my anchors.

I'm also very much like this.  I get intensely interested in something for a couple years and then all of a sudden something else will consume me, and I have very little control over it.  I've tried to channel this aspect of myself into my gaming habits, with some success.  I managed to keep myself intensely focused on 3d art for years while in school, even if I've been having immense trouble motivated myself to keep my skills from rusting after graduating.



Anyway, I'm really here to moan about work again.  I'm feeling overwhelmed and it's making me incredibly apathetic.  I haven't even had the energy to check in on the Occupy movement lately.  This is a massive indicator of something terribly wrong with me, since I've been waiting for something exactly like this to happen for over 10 years and now that it's happening, I can't even motivate myself to keep up with the news on it.

This place has been depressing me for years, but now it's genuinely fucking me over.  With this restructuring of benefits, me or my wife are going to have to get another job or I'm going to have to quit this one and find something better.  I'm starting to slack off here so badly that if I keep it up for much longer, I'm going to be fired... but I can't help myself.  I keep finding that I've been daydreaming or reading random stuff and that 30 minutes or an hour has passed without me realizing it.  I can't really afford to quit or screw up here, because we've been living paycheck to paycheck our whole adult lives.  We have no funding reserves to keep us propped up until I'm employed again, which all evidence currently indicates might not even happen at all.  But after 5 years of this, it's quite clear to me that my life is going absolutely nowhere until I get out of this place.  My parents are having enough trouble.  I don't think they could take me back in.  There's the very distant possibility that my wife's somewhat wealthy grandparents could save us.

I really need to be butting heads with destiny, but instead I'm turning into some sort of vegetable.  The world would work soooo much better for everyone if there was some way that people could be left alone once in a while to sort their fucking lives out.

[Heliman]

My comp got a random virus off of a site a friend suggested and I spent all night fixing it. It was a really annoying one this time around that blocked me from using my taskbar. Took forever.

[JoshuaFH]

My comp got a random virus off of a site a friend suggested and I spent all night fixing it. It was a really annoying one this time around that blocked me from using my taskbar. Took forever.

I should learn to program, just so I can write a virus, where the only thing it does is change your screensaver to twisty pipes.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

Or write a virus that just pops up a message telling you to verify things before downloading them.