Sometimes you have to trust your integrity.

[no_hypocrisy]

Last edited Sat May 13, 2023, 07:40 AM - Edit history (1)

This "town hall" with Kaitlan Collins, and subsequent "critique" by Anderson Cooper reminds me of my first years as a practicing attorney.

I was good at "traffic law," like speeding, red lights, careless driving, etc. I got hired by a city firm that sent their attorneys all over the region to various municipal courts for traffic violations. Guaranteed work, good exposure with prosecutors and judges, more experience.

One case "smelled" and the information packet seemed rather useless if I was going to cut a deal (plea bargain) with the prosecutor, the cop, and the court. I asked for the client's violation history with the DMV, several times actually. I was refused and told I didn't need it. I knew better from personal experience and yet, I went to court.

I met my client for the first time and my radar went up. I asked him when was the last time he got a ticket(s) and what was it for. He swore no tickets/convictions except for a minor situation six months ago.

So, we go up before the judge. The prosecutor didn't want to discuss merging any of the three tickets and perhaps downgrading the third. I'm telling the judge that my client didn't have any violations save for that one he revealed to me. The prosecutor asked for a quick adjournment and called me over. He showed me a three-page traffic rap sheet for my client. It went back five years and was just awful. I would have known about this had my employer given me the requested history and my client had lied to me. I was now on the record having lied to the Court. Not my fault, but still, not good.

Needless to say, my client and I didn't do well in court that day.

I immediately drove back to "the office," where I literally yelled at my employer and told him that he put me in a dangerous situation of lying to the Court, That he made me look like a fool, that I couldn't show my face in that courtroom for at least a decade, and that I quit.

My point: Maybe Christopher Licht made the singular or combined jobs of Kaitlin Collins and/or Anderson Cooper a pure horror a few nights ago. In any case, both their credibility and professionalism as journalists are now in question. I can't believe each one performed that badly by their own initiative.

They both likely have binding contracts. If I were either, I would have run with my contract to my attorney to find an "out clause" that would have allowed him/her/them to quit CNN for the sake of integrity, protection of their reputations, if not for the sake of the tradition of journalism.

I quit, never looked back, and gone forward with representing clients who can't afford Justice.

It can be done.

[Irish_Dem]

1. The lesson: The professional is the one who has to protect their reputation and license.

No one else is going to do it for them.
No one else cares.

Professionals will be asked to do illegal or unethical things during their career.
Things that will damage them.
That is a given.

The professional is the one who has to say nope, not doing it.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Exactly.

There are two possible transgressions:

1. You do something unethical, and

2. You keep doing it.

[Irish_Dem]

3. Yes

It is a one time mistake or a pattern of misconduct.

If a professional is facing charges of wrong dong, standing in front of the state board or
in front of a judge, the professional saying someone else made me do it will not fly.

Just like journalists saying my boss made me do it won't work either.

[3Hotdogs]

4. Two things: If you addressed the court, "My client advised me that he has had no traffic tickets---"

Didn't you have a pre-hearing conference with the prosecutor before the hearing?


#2. Don't worry about Kaitlan. If it's true that she is now the 9 p.m. host, she's in the catbird seat. And historically, she is a maggot.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. No. I usually expect pre-conference, but my client was

abysmally late and we had no choice but to go trial. The judge wasn’t having it.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

7. Guilty plea or after trial?

Prosecutor speaks first, would have revealed the record before defence spoke to sentence?

Not clear.

And I would have seen no reason to not inform the judge i had attempted to obtain the record but was refused…so it’ was the clients lie from start to finish…which the prosecutor would have supported.

[The Jungle 1]

5. We on the left got a stunning amount of attack material from that town hall.

It was great.

[MLAA]

8. Well done, no_hypocrisy!

I would have replied a few minutes sooner but took me a while to find the underscore on my iPad keyboard! Haha.

[llmart]

9. This can happen in many professions besides journalism and law.

As a retired HR manager there were a few times I was placed in a position of doing the unethical thing or leaving the job. I quit two jobs because I was asked to either do something unethical or look the other way when my superior was doing something unethical. I don't recall ever having trouble finding another job, but I also wasn't afraid of taking jobs that paid less than the one I left or had a lesser title. No, I shouldn't have had to do that, but it was easier for me to live with myself than it would have been if I would have done something against my core principles.

Anderson Cooper should be ashamed of himself. I used to respect him. No more. I don't care what his contract says. I had a contract in one of my jobs that I quit and a lawyer was able to get me out of the contract quite easily. He has more resources than I did.