ward@ttidcc.UUCP (Don Ward) (08/01/85)
While legal reform is appealing to those who ultimately pay for the ludicrous settlements awarded in civil cases (to wit, all of us), it's never going to happen because the laws permitting these excesses are made by elected offic- ials, most of whom are lawyers. Although many possible areas of reform dug- gest themselves (eg, requiring the posting of performance bonds, the limiting of general damages to some small multiple of specific damages, the disbarring of lawyers for filing a certain number of specious suits), nothing will ever happen while lawyers are the one's making the laws. Perhaps one might do as I do and NEVER vote for lawyers for any office that participates in the making of laws. While the idea of "killing all the lawyers" may have a certain appeal, the ultimate solution lies in electing people who are disposed to represent the victims of a legal system gone berserk and to correct it, rather than those who erected the system and in whose self-interest it is to perpet- uate it. ben