THE HIDDEN COST OF LEGAL REPRESENTATION, What Your Lawyer has to pay. Sheila Kessler, Animal Legal Resources, LLC. When I retired from my position with the State of Wisconsin and opened Animal Legal Resources with Marty Greer, I did it because I really wanted to combine my professional education, training and experience with something I truly love, animals. Since I started showing pugs in AKC events and then breeding them for show, I saw how often people with great intentions could stumble into legal trouble. The inherent imbalance of power between many of the players in show dogs is fraught with trouble. I thought I could bring a unique perspective to the process. The law is often an adversarial process and in many instances there are two or more sides in a dispute. When I am retained to represent someone as an attorney, I am ethically bound to vigorously advocate for my client’s position within the bounds of the law. I like to be on the side of someone who I see as weaker, or in an unequal position with their adversary and attempt to at least make the fight a little more balanced and less one sided. But, ultimately, I have to take a side, and that side is for my client. When it comes to animal cases and specifically those that have to do with dogs, it often means I become identified with my client and my client’s position. I spent much of my career before opening this practice representing indigent people in criminal matters so I was able to develop pretty thick skin. But in all honesty, most of the people I worked with, and in some cases, still do, understood the roles attorney must play in this adversarial drama that surrounds any criminal or civil matter. Many of my good friends are prosecutors and even some judges. And very often represent someone on the other side. None of us took our roles personally and understood the requirements of vigorous advocacy and that each person has a job to do and a position to take. Even many of my criminal defense clients understood this. I would often here, “I know, the DA just has a job to do, it isn’t personal”. That is no different in the arena of show dogs. The same types of disputes people can get into over anything else, they get into with dogs. Co-ownership arguments, sponsorship disputes, AKC rules or regulations violations are only a few of them. When people have reputations at stake or a vested interest in the outcome of a competition, tempers can flare and occasionally the rules of civility fall by the wayside and all of a sudden somebody wants to sue someone or “turn them in to the AKC”. When I am hired or retained by someone to deal with an issue relating to their animal, I do an interview and I don’t always take every case that comes my way. Sometimes the person inquiring my services just doesn’t have a case. Meaning, their issue is not something the law is equipped to handle. I can’t by virtue of the diploma and license on my wall, make people be nice to one another. Sometimes they do have a legitimate legal issue but the cost of pursuing a case vastly outweighs the value of a positive outcome and I counsel them to try and work out their issues on their own. When I do take on a matter, it is usually in defense of someone where someone else who has started the issue. I believe everyone is entitled to defend themselves against personal and legal attacks. Some of the time, my representation comes at a personal cost. Unlike the prosecutors and judges in the criminal matters I worked on in the past, the opponents in civil cases and especially those pertaining to animal law, do take my job personally. Whatever the perceived wrong, whether legitimate or not attributed to a client, is projected onto me by virtue of my ethical obligation to vigorously represent them. It is one of the factors I have to weigh in taking a case. In spite of the fact it has interfered with my ability to enjoy my chosen hobby, my job is my job and it is a cost I am willing to accept. Everyone deserves a vigorous defense and the ability to retain legal services to help them.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:49:58 +0000
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