Incentives to ensure competent legal counsel

Over the last twenty years with my girlfriend I have observed and experienced the strategies of legal counsel in Virginia.  The strategies that I have observed are as follows:

Conflict of interest.
Theocracy in the court.
Theft of settlements.
Failure to maintain the integrity of the profession.
Discrimination - Zealous representation vs. processing a client.
Inability for the unemployed to obtain competent counsel.

What was apparent was that there was no incentive for the attorneys not to make the mistakes, no incentive to execute diligent, zealous strategies on behalf of their clients.  The attorney would go through the motions of representation, show up in court, file a paper or two, just enough to claim that they were diligently representing their client.

The Virginia State Bar stands by their position of not addressing strategy failures, claiming that one can hire another member to address legal malpractice.  In effect the damaged client is supposed to regulate the profession.  When a damaged client contacts other members of the Bar they are told that it would be expensive and hard to prove negligent strategy.  The response implies that not using evidence and material may have been with intent - though the performance failure damaged the client.  In other performance professions bad plays are documented and recorded, in this profession bad plays are not recorded or identified.  Strategy is the service provided by members of the Virginia State Bar, yet it does not document failed strategies. This is a protected niche profession whose nature is such that only two parties know what material was available and one party, the client is silenced.

I was curious as to how the legal community would respond to my issues so I went to Lawyers.com, maybe they could address some of my concerns with the implementation and effectiveness of this profession.  I was also in hopes that there would be someone who would engage, someone that I might trust to actually represent my girlfriends issues, one that I would feel comfortable in hiring.  Lawyers.com deleted all my posts, apparently they did not like my comments, the forum did leave responses to my comments effectively silencing a voice.  Lawyers.com deleting the posts of one side of a dialog is similar to how this profession silences the voice of the client, they make claims that the client has "sour grapes", is stupid or in need of professional mental help.  Ad hominem attacks indicate that they do not have a response.

My girlfriend who is unemployed has been on a legal aid waiting list, for bankruptcy, since January 2010, it is now August 2010.  While on this list she had to go to Prince William Hospital, CPAT for a reaction to medication, while there she slipped on the floor and broke her leg.  Apparently CPAT does not have accident insurance, so my girlfriend attempted to obtain legal counsel again.  She calls legal aid and they tell her that she is still on a list but tells her to contact the Virginia State Bar, it tells her to contact legal aid.  When she calls up Virginia attorneys they ask her if there was anything on the floor, she does not remember given that she passed out from the pain.  Apparently slipping on a floor in a hospital and breaking a leg is not considered an accident or the hospital does not have accident insurance.

Objectives of this petition:
1)  The client must have a voice, must not be silenced.  An attorney may execute biased strategies because of their clients economic, ethnicity, religious or just a bad day.  This should be identified, maybe the wealthy client would like an economic bias, some might want a religious bias.  Some clients would be concerned if an attorney had a pattern of losing cases involving a certain demographic.
2)  The Virginia State Bar, oversight institution should maintain the integrity of the profession when one of their members is caught stealing settlements.  The Virginia State Bar should ensure that the pro bono client represented by their thief gets pro bono counsel.
3)  When a client can identify where years of documented abuse is located (doctors/therapist/Social Services), where video evidence should be available (CVS store security video) and provides an outline of the situation, it is the duty of the attorney to execute due diligence and at the minimum contact the identified components of the case.
4)  Part of the situation this country is in resulted from "professionals" failing to engage, to challenge bad laws and processes.  The excuse is that they are in business, to make money, that the hard cases are unwinnable.  Why would an accident resulting in a broken leg inside a hospital be unwinnable ?  Why would a case involving years of documented spousal abuse be considered unwinnable ?  Why would an attorney representing a client who was assaulted by police not bother with obtaining and reviewing the available CVS store security video ?
5)  Documenting client issues, identifying possible negligence would expose the "bad apples", improve the integrity of the profession and relationship with the clients.
6)  My girlfriend is unemployed, has been waiting on legal aid.  How are all those other unemployed people doing ?  How is the quality of their representation if they do manage to obtain counsel ?  If they cannot which way do the courts go, can one trust the judgment of the courts ?  Maybe the officer of the court, the attorney, that says a case with evidence is unwinnable is correct, evidence does not matter in the courts ?

The client must have confidence that they are being represented competently, that their trust is not being betrayed.  An attorney that executes a strategy of selectively representing clients of choice does a disservice to themselves and the profession.  As it stands the client is silenced, much like Lawyers.com silenced an opinion that they did not like.

References:

Our Experiences

CPAT - Petition

Lawyers.com - Jowey's deleted posts

Lawyers.com - how the forum helps the unemployed

Reform attorneys with functional oversight - Petition

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