“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.” ~ Margaret Mead
Sometimes all that is needed to change a life is someone who cares. After nearly 30 years of handling hundreds of cases for both plaintiffs and defendants at every stage of the legal process in such diverse areas as bad faith insurance, Truth in Lending, and construction defects, I am now reinventing my legal career as an advocate for human rights and the protection of consumers and investors.
Taking on big corporations and law firms with all their money and resources requires a lawyer to be nimbler and more discerning of the time and information required to prove a case. I don’t have the sheer horsepower of the big law firms on the other side, but I am blessed to work with some of the finest and most gifted attorneys in the world.
According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, there are two distinct forms of justice: universal and particular. Universal Justice is concerned with obeying laws and with virtue as a whole. All lawful things are in some sense just. Laws aim to promote the common interests of all citizens, so something is just if it promotes or conserves the happiness of the community. As such, justice is the foundation of social life.
Justice has a unique place in Aristotle’s ethics. He explains that justice is generally thought to mean a state of character that disposes us to perform just acts, behave in a just manner, and wish for what is just. An unjust person is someone who breaks the law and takes unfair advantage of others by taking more than his share of goods, whereas a just person is law abiding and fair.
In any exchange, the just is what is fair without regard to the parties involved, just the transaction itself. Both parties are treated as equals before the law in the exchange of goods or services, regardless of their individual merits. The role of the law, therefore, is to restore the mean between too much and too little, to remedy an inequitable division between two parties, and to equalize the inequality of the injustice. That is the goal of Aristotle’s Universal Justice, and that is what I strive to do in every case.
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