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Chapter 12 Credential Crazy What follows is an account of
a friend of mine. He was in jail in Santa Rosa, California with another
one of my friends. The two of them—with a little guidance from some of
the books I wrote on how to use the legal system—raised so much hell in the
jail there that the authorities kicked them both out of the jail. They were
good. Unfortunately, because they didn't have "law degrees"
and "bar cards," they weren't allowed to make a living in the
field. Worse, the attorneys in San Francisco—where they "hung
out" after they "got out"—looked down their noses at these
two, even though both of them were more competent than the land sharks they
were associating with. I got sucked into one of
their situations and tried to help. What follows is an account of what
happened, written by a friend of mine, followed by my own litany of
events. The "Mary Jane" mentioned is an obvious
alias. * * * * * In an era when sensationalism and the obsession with popular fads are at their peak, the American female turns to the ultimate symbol of a superior class of people, the credential. To today's women it matters
less of what is said than who said it. Today's American female is too
mesmerized by the false sense of security bestowed upon her by being in the
presence of a man with an Ivy League sheepskin. American women don't
think, they suppose, and they suppose incorrectly. You may be skilled in
any number of professions or trades and, while you may engage in cocktail
chats with some ladies, suddenly a fool may appear and begin to contradict
everything you just said. You protest and specifically and articulately
debunk each of your adversary's contentions with sound objective facts.
Do you think it matters? Your adversary turns to the females who
eagerly look to him for a rebuttal. He smiles and simply states,
"I went to Yale." The women rejoice and suppose, albeit
mistakenly, that this ignorant stranger must be telling the truth, after all
he has the "credentials." You then become less important than
the coffee table in the room. The American female
cares not about objectivity or anything done right for that matter. All
that is relevant is that her superficial wants and desires are satisfied and
her vanity is served. To the women enamored by the credentialed fool,
it was immaterial who the expert in the - 63 - conversation truly was. Rather, it was the sense
of propriety associated with a college degree that drove these women to the
fool from Yale. That night the intelligent man whose rhetoric won the
argument, got taught a cruel lesson in reality—American women are crazy. American women are
incapable of discerning knowledge for themselves. American women,
unlike foreign women who know their place, will only accept advice from
someone who holds an approved "credential." They will do this
even if their blind faith and misplaced trust leads to them into
catastrophe. Foreign women, on the other hand, serve their provider
unequivocally, which is what proper companionship is all about. The following example
will provide more than enough empirical evidence to confirm the conclusions
made throughout this book. Names have been changed to protect the
incompetent. Mary Jane was an
educated, middle-aged lawyer with all the right credentials and academically
gifted. She had served prominent internships in Congress and was fluent
in several languages. However, like most women, she had a propensity to
agitate her superiors and soon found herself in a professional quagmire. Mary Jane, while
working as a staff lawyer for a state agency, discovered monumental and
needless waste of taxpayer funds. Concerned, Mary Jane immediately
reported her observations to her superiors who abruptly ordered her to shut
up and forget it. Perturbed, Mary
Jane contacted the state oversight agency and reported the deplorable conduct
by the agency. Within days she was abruptly fired for being a
"security risk." Obviously, Mary Jane had learned too much
and, when she refused to keep quiet, disciplinary action was taken. This predicament
sounds simple enough. One would think that when a lawyer is aggrieved
that the justice system would work double time or at least work.
Unfortunately, it all depends on how well the lawyer can take advice and
follow instructions. Mary Jane wanted to
file a lawsuit. However, she did not specialize in the type of
litigation she needed to know to seek justice. Through a friend Mary
Jane was put in contact with the guru of self-represented federal litigation,
Mr. Michael H. Brown. Sensing the gravity of Mary Jane's situation and
knowing that a lawyer with a conscience could potentially become a powerful
ally, Brown proceeded to help. He buckled down with his editor for
three days and provided a finished product—a civil rights lawsuit,
tailor-made for Mary Jane's particular plight. At first Mary Jane
was elated. Someone had just handed her a finished lawsuit and she did
not have to do anything for it in return. Then things started to change
when she made decisions based on her credential requirement mindset.
Mary Jane took Brown's complaint with her to see some fellow attorney
friends. Immediately these credential crazy lawyers told her she - 64 - couldn't file it because a lawyer did not draft it. None of these
"practitioners" actually pointed out any factual or legal
deficiencies. Rather, they relied on their inherent powers of the
credential to give their conclusions weight. None of these attorneys
could have given Brown's work a fair shake because they knew that his lawsuit
was profound, however the woman was inherently drawn to follow the mistaken
advice of her credentialed brethren. These bar
card-carrying lawyers had a better suggestion for Mary, throw away Brown's
document and pay them to write one for her. This way, they said, she
will look legitimate. Of course Mary Jane fell for it, hook, line, and
sinker. She was credential crazy. Mary ignored Brown's sound
advice and hired not one but two of these legal "experts" and
proceeded to start from scratch. Mary Jane's
attorneys successfully bamboozled her into tossing her key to justice right
out the window. Her new crack team of bar card waiving
"litigators" not only mistakenly filed her lawsuit in the wrong
court but, in addition, they wrote a lawsuit that contained defects— enough
to potentially get the case thrown out of court. Furthermore this
"law firm" couldn't even serve the lawsuit properly. The court on its
own volition ordered Mary Jane's attorneys to show cause as to why the
court should not sanction Mary Jane and the attorneys, dismiss the case, or
do both. Because a delirious woman cared more about credentials than
competence the lawsuit did get dismissed. To this day Mary
Jane stands by her credential convictions and for good reason. She
doesn't want to come to grips with the stark reality—that she botched her own
case due to her propensity to follow a couple of ignorant charlatans' advice
over that of an experienced ghostwriter. She worships the rubber
stamp certificates that hang on their office walls. If she faced
reality, she just might suffer a nervous breakdown. * * * * * My friend left out a few details, which I will provide. This was a really
pretty girl. She had a bar card and was fluent in Spanish. I
thought this is an ideal situation. She had what I needed—a bar card
and fluency in Spanish—and I thought I had what she needed. She had the
bar card and the language without knowing how to use either one. She
couldn't write a coherent paragraph (let alone write in the past
tense). All she had to do was write out the facts of her own case,
which she knew better than anyone. This woman had no idea on how to
bolt a lawsuit together or to attract clients. At the time I was
in communication with some fairly well-heeled potential clients in New York,
one of whom had been indicted for moving 4,000 kilos of nose candy into the
United - 65 - States. Had Mary Jane taken some of these cases,
the two of us would have been living on a seven-figure income. Thinking this was
an ideal situation, I wrote to her and suggested she fly out here and
negotiate moving in with me. I even told her I had a spare bedroom she
could stay in. Had I made the same
offer to a woman from Eastern Europe, Brazil, or wherever, I would have
received a simple "yes" or "no" answer. Not this
one. My two friends from Santa Rosa were there when she got my
letter. She went ballistic. It took the both of them half an hour
to calm her down. She was so insulted, presumably because I didn't have
a bar card or wasn't a law professor. She later showed my
letter to some of her own friends, who pointed out that what I had sent her
was a proposal and that she had nothing to get excited about. What she had,
unknown to me at the time, can most charitably be described as San Francisco
Snob Syndrome. She had the credentials, her lawyers had the
credentials, but they had no competence. One does not necessarily
follow the other. Where does this
girl go from here? Unless someone takes her to raise, teaches her how
to think, and teaches her how to act, probably not up. My friend
helping her with her legal work tells me that she got her last piece of
furniture from a dumpster. |