AAJ Names New President..........

...........and for some reason they think we care. First, you are asking "AAJ?" Did this crazy guy get something stuck in his throat? What the heck is AAJ? No, I am not at the dentist when I write this. No, the doctor is not using a tongue depressor on me. (Admit it, you are impressed I could spell depressor on the first try.)

AAJ is the American Association for Justice. You see, it used to be called ATLA - the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. Then they paid a consultant a lot of money. That consultant decided that they needed to change their name. After all, apparently calling oneself a trial lawyer is not descriptive enough for them. Justice is more descriptive. So ATLA had a meeting and only those members in attendance could vote. They voted to change the name despite quite a bit of outcry from members who couldn't afford to go to the meeting.

Remember, this is all consultant driven. Oh, and guess what - these consultants weren't trial lawyers or former trial lawyers. These were your run of the mill MBA consultants who couldn't figure out what a trial lawyer was without a picture book by Roald Dahl. Consultants have one purpose - paperweights. Well, some of them. Some of them have a second purpose - shark food. After all, you need to keep the sharks happy somehow and eating consultants is not a bad way of doing it. (Note: I don't mean to lump all consultants in to one group, some actually do a good job. It just so happens I can count them on one hand and two of them are friends of mine!)

So ATLA changed its name to AAJ. AAJ sounds like you just puked. Actually, remember the frog in the blender game on your 286? (If you don't get a 286, you were not a computer geek!) AAJ sounds like the sound the frog made just before it went to froggy heaven - or froggy milkshake in this case. Its not even a word. Maybe we should toss it in with Web 2.0 for the 1,000,001 word that is not an actual word. Remember, Web 2.0 is TWO WORDS so it cannot be the millionth word in the English language.

I, along with others, then quit ATLA. I still call it ATLA. Why did we quit? Because I am not a just lawyer. I am not a member of the Hall of Justice ("Back at the hall of Justice, Attorney Jones was typing a brief in his briefs with his briefcase nearby after a brief break with Secretary Smith.") I am not a superhero. I am a trial lawyer. Plain and simple. I sue people - and I like it. (Raise your hand if you heard me say that before.) When a client calls and asks for "justice," I politely refer them to some new lawyer or some shmuck down the street.

So now they have elected some new guy President. He is a partner in some huge law firm with 15 partners. They handled "disasters" including Pan Am Flight 103. Apparently, he is in the business of justice. I still don't understand how you get justice for clients, but I am sure he must be smarter than me. Maybe he can explain it to me. Of course, I would also like to know how you get paid when you get people justice. Maybe if you have 15 partners you can afford to get people justice. But most of us are just trying to get our clients compensated for their losses or stop some bad behavior of some mean debt collector. Of course, this is the same ridiculous group that has a former President who was a partner in a firm that defended insurance companies - the same people we regularly sue. Thats not a conflict of interest or anything.

So, memo to Kyle Murphy at Justice.org: I DON'T CARE THAT YOU ELECTED SOME GUY PRESIDENT. Dude is not a trial lawyer. Dude is not a consumer lawyer. Dude is some rich guy who is out of touch with most Americans. Hey, that sounds like most politicians. Apparently if you are elected to any position it is a requirement that you be out of touch with most people. Remove me from your list and stop with your nonsense emails. Oh, and next time you decide to send out an email like this, try having a professional journalist write it. I have a few I can recommend who are really good.