I'm not evil

Tommy gave me shit yesterday because he claimed my first post was evil and cold-hearted. He called me a monster. He referred to the part where I professed relief and even happiness that the guy on the phone lived on a fixed income allowing me to push him off to call pro bono.

In his description of my account, Tommy quoted a lot of things incorrectly and embellished a lot of the frustrated and cynical sentiment coming from my end of the telephone. However his points did make me think about the tone of that post and how it may sound to people who are not sitting at this desk talking to this wide swath of society all day long. When answering these calls I try not to judge people on their accent or grammar, to do so would be unfair and just plain wrong. I do however judge people on the tone and inflection of their voices, these are absolutely fair game. Some people just sound crazy the way some people just sound bitchy or douchey. It was pretty obvious that this guy yesterday wanted to sue whoever he could get money out of, and since it happened on an MTA bus, for all he knows, MTA is liable for his pain and suffering. That is if it even occured, there was no police report or medical evidence. On that call, Pro Bono was a way to get him off of the line and its something I have to do sometimes because crazy people are tenacious.

So why inundate Pro Bono with crazy people calls rather than the fat cat lawyers to whom I send business everyday? Isn't it better to help Pro Bono out since they're surely strapped for cash, attorneys, and just about everything else that keeps them running? Here-in rests the unpleasant dilemma of doing this job.

The essence of the dillema is this: When we refer cases to lawyers, they pay us a cut of the money they make off of the case, if any. Its a way for them to get a bit of steady business in a volatile market and the small portion we receive keeps us up and running. But, if we send them too many crazies or frivolous suits it eats their time, they lose money, and if it happens too often they take their names off the list and we lose operating costs. So I am the filter, and in many ways it sucks making snap judgements about people and their stories. You risk making a bad judgement and pushing a real person with a real problem around like another piece of paper in this monstrous bureaucracy we live in. So its treat people a little less well than you'd overall want to be treated and keep the business going or play the absolute humanitarian and refer everyone to a lawyer and go bust. In reality its not so clean cut, but I think my point is clear.

This brings me to two calls I had this morning in which both parties wanted to sue a large government entity; the school system and the state health board respectively.

The first lady I spoke with sounded awful, meek and desperate, nearly in tears. I could understand why. She explained to me that over the past 6 months she had been evicted from her home and as a result had her severly disabled son taken from her and placed in a state-run hospital during which time he developed a stage 4 (to the bone) bed-sore requiring numerous surgeries in turn producing ever-mounting medical bills.

This lady had nothing, with nothing coming but more bills and more hardship and she has no idea where to turn or who, if any one, could help her out. To add to the list of sorrows, she is a "student care-giver" and lives off of the disability income that her son earns from the state and federal government. An absolutely bleak situation and I have to figure out whats best for her.

I should point out that it is not in fact "our policy" to refer everyone on a fixed income to Pro Bono, it is simply a good way of getting jack-asses off the line. If they have a legitimate sounding case, we can refer them (although this is another hard thing that I guess I'm not really supposed to decide because I'm not a lawyer). But decide I must and in this case it seems that her best first step is to go to Pro Bono. I tell her that they are a free legal society and that they will help her if they can. I also explain that because she is on an extremely limited income it is her best bet to start there and see if they can do anything for her. They can tell her if she has a case unlike I can and if they cannot help, I tell her to please give me a call back and that I will be happy to refer her to an attorney because she does sound like she has a case for medical negligence. She has said nothing about suing the state, only that she needs help to figure out who can help her with the medical bills. I am more than happy to help this woman, I truly do hope Pro Bono can or another attorney can assist her.

The second lady just went into it, telling me about how her ex-husband had been touching her son and pulling him out of classes, how she wanted to sue those responsible, and on and on and on. She was fairly irate, but a bit incoherent and vague as to what she wanted a lawyer to do. I inquired as to whether she had contacted the police as she had talked about molestation. She had, they had investigated. I asked what she wanted a lawyer to do for her. She wants to sue the school. Because her husband is an employee of the school? Well no, but he works for a company that works within the schools. Its becoming increasingly apaprent that she wants to cook the biggest fish she can fry. Her story doesn't add up and I'm sure (even though I'm not a lawyer) that an attorney would tell her the same thing and not take her case. At this point I have to get rid of her, which is the fun part, selling the Dial-A-Lawyer service. But how that is done shall be saved for a later post.