Greater Detail, Greater Frequency, Just Freakin' Great

Hereafter follows the post wherein some of my background is revealed. No, I'm no Lamont Cranston, but it's a start.

I'm 34. I'm a husband (going on 3 years), a homeowner, a father-to-be, a patent attorney, and a newly-hired federal employee. I wasn't always any of those things, in fact all of those titles recently became applicable. Like many, the law is my second career, although given all that I've gone through to make it a reality, and the extent to which I enjoy it, I really hope it's the last career I choose to pursue.

In my previous life, I monitored, audited, and managed clinical research for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries; I did that for about eight years, thoroughly enjoyed it, and gained a newfound respect for some companies, professionals, and the way they do business. By no stretch of the imagination is it a perfect industry; the media has done a semi-decent job of covering some of the more egregious issues concerning the sales, marketing, and general ethics of the players, but in general the adages of apples and cockroaches apply. It only takes one bad one to spoil the public perception of the entire industry; and if you find one, you can be pretty sure that there are hundreds more lurking in the shadows.

Now, this may somewhat qualify as self-promotion, given my background, but Shakespeare got it wrong; the last thing a responsible society ought to do is kill all the lawyers. Consulting with a good one, and then actually following their advice, can go a long way to keeping one out of trouble. Not all attorneys are concerned with getting you out of a jam once you're in it; the best ones can tell you how to avoid the problem in the first place. The world really NEEDS more GOOD lawyers; they help far more than they harm.

And so it is with a bit of dismay that I read about or overhear people decrying the state of the world and placing at least part of the blame at the feet of attorneys and pharmaceutical companies. Just as not all of either are saints, so too are not all of either sinners, and we should perhaps withhold judgment until all the facts are in. More importantly, we may want to consider whether perhaps judgments made previously weren't accurate, in light of additional information, and that basing a change in one's position when based on such new information may in fact be a virtue rather than a weakness. People are inherently fallible and mistake-prone. I hate to sound like a lawyer (OK, not really), but if you can convince me you've a solid foundation for your position, and can back that up with independently verifiable facts, you're going to go a long way towards persuading me you may have something. The key to that process, because it is a process, is the ability to independently research and verify facts in support of or contrary to your chosen position. "The Google" helps somewhat, but in terms of broader issues and topics, that's something that the media traditionally provided, given their specialization and their resources supposedly committed to that precise task. Its an open question whether media consolidation and corporate ownership thereof has helped or harmed that core role, but it certainly seems as though less resources are committed to reporting than are committed towards selling what is being reported, to the detriment of public knowledge and discourse. When more media time is dedicated to the previous night's "American Idol" results than deliberations over the 4th Amendment implications of retroactive telecom immunity, and just what sort of activity would require such immunity, we may have passed some critical tipping point.

Because remember, whatever the industry, the goal of any publicly held corporation is the same; return value to shareholders. All public corporations sell something or another, whether it be drugs, airtime, information, or whatever. The important question to ask is whether the benefits of their products outweigh the harm they may create. If there is little benefit provided, it isn't hard to tip those scales the wrong way. Think about that the next time your local newscast spends half their time talking about the latest missing white woman with wealthy parents, the latest quasi-celebrity admitted to rehab, or a car accident ten states away.

Where's the value in that, unless you're an ad salesman concerned with ratings?