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![]() Angel s1e16 So the assertion that Wolfram and Hart are not the only evil lawyers in the world will not be controversial to anyone who has been involved in the legal system, watched TV or movies, or been related by blood or marriage to a lawyer. After all, what's the difference between a vampire and a lawyer? One's a malignant, bloodsucking monster, and the other can turn into a bat. So when it turns out that one of Angel's nemeses in Los Angeles is gasp, a law firm, I thought, "Hmmm, how very original. Lawyers without souls. That's not been done before." The fact that Wolfram and Hart engage in pimping for vampires, arranging demon cockfights, bidding on parts to be ripped from still-living bodies, and all sorts of other activities that would probably get them disbarred, even in California, was slightly interesting. Sort of. But then I realized something; Wolfram and Hart must be only the tip of the icebergof a vast conspiratorial underground of superevil lawyers. Wolfram and Hart are very open about their superevil. Maybe this is to provide Angel with the opportunity to fend off smoldering looks from attractive young female attorneys at W&H. Maybe it's because L.A. is a big city, and big cities have more powerful, visible lawyers in general. But the superevil lawyers (I'll call them this in order to distinguish them from your average lawyer) are out there, not just in L.A., but anywhere there's a market for their services. Even in the small towns. Oh yes, they're out there. See, vampires need lawyers just as they need other mundane things like hair gel, black nail polish and Hugo Boss dusters. Living forever takes some financial planning, and a vamp's got to have someone who knows his or her way around trusts and inheritance tax laws. And yes, if you're a vamp you can occasionally find an abandoned mansion to squat in, but really, with today's economic boom, and the constant threat of wrecking balls and new construction, not owning a house is not really smart. (Yes, I know Spike is currently living in an abandoned mausoleum, but he's not really at his full power now, is he?) And if you do find a ramshackle building at the edge of campus, as Sunday and her cohorts did, who keeps busybody housing associations and the city planning commission off a vamp's back? Lawyers who've gone over to the dark side. Or further over, any way. Plus, vamps can lead a pretty lavish lifestyle, and that's the sort of thing that leads to tax trouble. And if the Scooby Gang is any indication, humans are always tramping around a vamp's living (or undead-ing) space. And humans are wont to sue if they slip and fall while tramping around, and can possibly blame their injuries on someone else. Vamps get sued and audited like anyone else, you can count on it. Yes, I know that vamps can take care of themselves pretty well just by eating people who cause them trouble. But if, for example, a vamp ate the first IRS auditor who came to check out his sources of income, the IRS would just send another. And another. And another. This would be pretty cool at first --vamp room service--but it would attract some attention eventually. And despite the typical vampire machismo, it's really to their advantage to lay low. Demons, at least the fairly sentient ones are who aren't merely into the "crush, kill, destroy" lifestyle, must run into the same problems. Remember, Anya's father "owned a utility or something," according to Harmony, when she first introduced Anya to Cordelia. Anya doesn't really have a father, so far as we know. So when a demon in the form of 17-year-old girl comes to town and needs to get set up with a house and money, who does she call who won't ask too many questions? Must have been a superevil lawyer. Well, it could have been an evil realtor (estate agent to you Brits), I suppose, but you really don't hear much about realtors being evil. Superevil lawyers don't just serve demons and vamps, they serve the Watcher's Council, the mayor...whoever is in on the secret and can pay handsomely. Further evidence of superevil lawyers at work: Jenny is found dead in Giles' bed, with all the trappings of a romantic evening arranged around her. We know, again due to television, that valuable learning tool, that statistically, young women are most likely to be murdered by their boyfriends. Yet the police don't investigate Giles, the most obvious suspect. Why? Somebody from the Watcher's Council made a call to their legal bagman in Sunnydale, who did the proper posturing and threatening on Giles' behalf, just as we saw Wolfram and Hart do when Little Tony was first arrested by Kate. Yes, I know at the time that the Watcher's Council was busily snubbing Giles for being too American. However, when push came to shove, it's in their interests to bail out their own. I suspect that something similar happened when Buffy fled after Kendra's death. Yeah, we know she was cleared of involvement in Kendra's death, although she was the strongest suspect and the police had mounted a manhunt for her. Nobody really knows how she was cleared. I suspect the Watcher's Council again hired a superevil lawyer who worked his mojo at the Sunnydale police department. While clearing Buffy and Giles doesn't really constitute superevil, that's kind of the hallmark of a soulless lawyer--being willing to change sides at the drop of a hat. And I have no doubt that Buffy and Giles never knew that efforts had been made on their behalf. A superevil lawyer is nothing if not discreet. So how do you tell a superevil lawyer from a garden variety lawyer? I suspect that if the law firm is named for traditionally mystical animals, such wolves, rams, and harts, that this is a good tip-off. (Thanks to Vox for pointing this out to me; I miss obvious things like this sometimes.) Cage and Fish is merely a nest of neurotic miscreants. A firm called Yuney, Corn and Griffin would obviously be trouble. Another sure sign; the lawyers are young and good-looking. I'm a lawyer myself, and I know that the practice of non-superevil law is really bad for your skin and muscle tone. Plus, in a non-superevil firm, you don't get any real responsibility until you're at least as old and unsightly as your supervising partner. But superevil lawyers hatch important schemes, work their cellphone voodoo, and act quietly menacing, all while looking tanned, sexy, and under 30. Real superevil lawyers are clever. They're never obviously aggressive, or slimy, or obnoxious. You're not likely to know you're in the presence of a superevil lawyer unless you're alone with him or her, or by yourself in a group of them. This identifying characteristic of subtlety excludes the following as potentially superevil lawyers. Any attorney who advertises on a billboard. Any lawyer who defends high-profile, obviously guilty clients while playing to the cameras. Any attorney with a vanity plate on his BMW which says something like "LEGL EGL" or "TRUST ME." I must admit that this theory positing a conspiracy of superevil lawyers explains a lot to me, as a non-superevil lawyer. For instance, if you're an attorney in the US, you can join the American Bar Association, pay your $200 or so and get a really, really expensive magazine subscription. But you can also pay an additional $20 per section, and join subsections of the American Bar Association (or ABA) by checking off the boxes for certain specialty areas of the legal profession on your application form. This gets you the right to attend certain conferences, get specialized education, hang with like-minded lawyers, and I don't know what all since I've never checked one. Anyhow, I readily understood who the "Ally McBeal" section of the ABA was intended to serve; (skeletor females with ticking biological clocks). I also understood the "Star Chamber" section (you'll know if you've seen the Michael Douglas movie), and the "Serving Mammon" section of the ABA (self-explanatory.) But until I'd seen Wolfram and Hart in action on "Angel," I never truly understood why there is an "Occult" section of the ABA. And I'd always tossed aside those solicitations for donations to the DemonAid Society, and never responded to that invitation I got to join the Faustus Society. Until now, I was blithely unaware of the conspiracy in the midst of my profession. Be afraid. Be very afraid. [Vox's note: Diandra wanted to put in a disclaimer saying that there wasn't really an occult section of the ABA or a DemonAid Society, or a Faustus Society. I told her not to be so naive ;) ] Your opinion Or you can
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