A Dissertation on a Civil ActionIn Johnathan Harr's book, A Civil Action, several children were diagnosed with leukemia in the very small town of Woburn, Massachusetts. When the parents of these children realized how many other children were affected by this disease so close to home, they decided something had to be done. A lawsuit was filed and there were many actions along the way. This book was a great read and it contained many familiar things that could relate to our course on the legal process. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Woburn case was filed in 1980. This, after 12 children contracted leukemia within this small community. Everyone pointed to the new wells installed a few kilometers away, which were possibly contaminated. Woburn residents all agreed that the water had a foul odor, was stained, and tasted horrible. The parents of these children were outraged and sought answers in any way possible, when finally five families came together and agreed to allow Joe Mulligan of Reed & Mulligan to represent them. Mulligan offered the families a contingency fee contract as a form of payment. They agreed to give Mulligan a third of the final winnings in the case. Even with this large potential sum of money guaranteed, the deal lay dormant for years. It was only just before the statute of limitations expired that a new lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann, entered the law firm and took over. After much disarray, Schlichtmann decided to turn the case over to Anthony Roisman in Washington, D.C., and agreed to remain the families' local attorney and, in turn, share in the winnings. Together, Roisman and Schlictman eventually filed a lawsuit against WR Grace and Beatrice Foods for illegal and negligent dumping of waste, which resulted in the contamination of Wells G and H in Woburn, Massachusetts, just days before the expiration of the statue. The most prominent lawyer in this case would undoubtedly be Jan Schlichtmann. The book surveys almost his entire life in a way that it does for no one else. In the second chapter, titled “The Lawyer,” there is a lot of talk about Schlichtmann’s history and strengths. Her story is very relatable, as a student considering pursuing law school. At first, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with the legal field, when suddenly, he decided that it was the only field he wanted. In fact, on page 57, Harr states that Schlichtmann had decided: "The law is perhaps the highest calling to which a man can aspire." » This, after realizing that the profession of lawyer “was not limited to wills, divorces and sordid criminal cases”. (page 57). These words, along with the rest of this chapter, were a reminder of our class discussions about Chapter 3 of Porto's book, May It Please The Court. In fact, one of the essay questions in our Test 1 was: “What do lawyers do?” » It's a very common theory that lawyers just show up in court and challenge witnesses. It is also common for attorneys to only handle their cases in person and have an assistant do the rest of the work. This page alone proves otherwise. Schlichtmann is outraged by the discrimination expressed against these welfare mothers and he has made it his duty to lead this battle himself. He was veryInteresting to read that he had very little interest in misdemeanors in law school, but ended up being the key asset in the Woburn case. We see Schlichtmann practicing many different types of law, even in many firms, in this book. This proves how much diversity there really is in the legal profession. Chapter 2 covered many things that brought attention to this lawyer. Schlichtmann himself even said something that was extremely relevant to our class: “This is now a political battle, not a legal one. We are not ready for the legal battle yet” (p. 69). At that time he was speaking to Anne Anderson, mother of one of the children who died of leukemia at Woburn, about the difficulties in moving this trial forward. Specifically, he was talking about the process of finding out what exactly was contaminating these wells and ultimately making these children sick. This sounds like something that could be written by Brian Porto himself. In Chapter 1 of May It Please The Court, Porto discusses the debate between law and politics in detail. Some say they are completely different and unrelated, and others think they are one. However, as Porto stated and Schlichtmann proved, "law and politics...are not identical twins, but they are close relatives and they both influence the courts, sometimes even in the same case" (p. 16). Porto refers to politics as “who gets what, when and how” (p. 3). This perfectly describes what is happening here. Schlichtmann suggests to this mother that she simply needs to be patient and wait for the political decision to be made on when and how these (what) specific toxic waste dumps will be investigated. The legal question would be the opinion of the Woburn public on this issue and whether anything should be done about it, but ultimately it's up to politics to decide when and where. This is an unfortunate situation for these families, brought on by our American government system. You would think that with all this public outrage and child deaths, something more would be done here, and more quickly. Out-of-court settlements have been discussed a lot in our class. We have often stated that many attorneys choose to resolve their matters outside of court and use the court as a sort of “last resort” option. We see two examples in the book of attempted settlements. First, William Cheeseman, attorney for WR Grace, files a motion for summary judgment in the case due to an alleged lack of evidence on the part of the plaintiffs. This motion was denied by the presiding judge, the Honorable Justice Walter Skinner. Just before the trial began, there were two different attempts to resolve this issue outside of court, but neither was successful. The case was going to trial. However, before the trial, the defense discovered another company with a factory near the wells. Schlichtmann also filed a complaint with this company, Unifest. This case was settled out of court for $1,050,000. It was agreed that this money would be used as part of the advancement of a larger matter, and this continued. These issues were handled legally, obviously, since this is a lawsuit, but many political factors were also involved in achieving said settlement. When settling with Unifest, the company originally did not want to offer that much money. This price has continued to increase. Additionally, once they finally settled on an amount, they agreed that that amount would be paid in payments, much like politics would define as "who gets what, when.", 55(4), 502-525.