Comedian charged: Not funny

Unsurprisingly I'm calling you wrong on all counts my friend:-) - "It's your profession that makes sure that murderers like McGee in Adelaide walk away with suspended sentences" - nope. That's the law. Not lawyers. Parliament makes laws that value property over people. Lawyers make sure the law gets explained and upheld, and make sure that any evidence in favour of a person's case gets presented to the court - and even then the accused is hardly on equal footing to the prosecution: the accused doesn't have the whole resources of the STATE backing them up nor laws to phone-tap, arrest and interrogate, nor are they 'professional-witnesses' such as police and security guards. There's no magic wand that anyone waves to magically make experienced Judges and cynical juries fall under some hypnotic spell - EVIDENCE and LAW is what is relevant. And when someone gets a 'lenient' penalty because their case is less black-and-white than what the profiteering/capitalist media would make you believe, any advocate should wear the resulting unpopularity as a badge of pride. Of course when the media get caught having presented such an oversimplified account of a case or an offender that the result goes against the expecations that people formed due to the biased reporting, then the media covers its rear by attacking the court. Given that, statistically speaking, offenders are almost entirely from the politically and economically marginalised subclasses of society (well the ruling classes aren't exactly going to make laws that they would break are they), that is hardly surprising. - "It's your profession that makes sure that the major companies only pay stupidly low fines for pollution" - wrong again. Parliament makes those laws and YOU vote for them. Weren't you the one who said 'if you don't like the law, change it'? All the lawyers do to explain to people what the laws are, and make sure that the law and fair procedure get applied. Ironically, if you got rid of legal representation those companies would do just fine - they could easily afford to just train some internal execs on the law relevant to their area if they had to represent themselves in court. But more the point - those companies don't NEED the law - they've got the raw power of finance and influence. The case you cited isn't actually an example of the law ASSISTING a company - its a case of the law IMPEDING the company's ability to pollute, albeit ineffectually. - "A legal system that makes sure the only lawyers that the dispossessed get are incompetents makes you rich" - Makes 'me' rich? You might want to check the papers for the going rates for community legal centre and legal aid lawyers. We're paid about the same as teachers. And as for 'the only lawyers that the dispossessed get are incompetents' - putting aside the blatant personal swipe, that's just not true. Legal Aid and Aboriginal Legal Service are amongst the most highly sought-after graduate positions, because of the enormous numbers of good lawyers willing to sacrifice a high salary for the sake of doing satisfying work. It's also hard to think of another profession that does comparable amounts of pro bono (ie free) work to QCs. - "OK you're a nice guy" - I am certainly NOT a nice guy:-) Actor, martial artist and soon-to-be Philosophy post-grad student. Making myself less employable one step at a time:-)