I Won't Feel Helpless

Adam, The black-and-white perspective you espouse doesn't take into account the fact that anything that you do as a lawyer (or in life, for that matter) that affects the "big box" stores to which you refer also affects many other people and companies in many different ways, including the "little guy." Since you focused on bankruptcy, I would respond that helping a large company (like a bus company or discount department store) avoid bankruptcy or implement a financial reorganization plan allows people (no matter their economic status) who depend on those companies' services or buy their goods to continue to do so. Additionally, many lawyers I know don't just limit their work to either helping only lower-income families with bankruptcies or only big business with bankruptcies. The need for bankruptcy services comes from a variety of people, places, and situations. To stereotype the nature and scope of bankruptcy services as falling into only two distinct camps (those of the "big box" or of a working class family) is not to see the other situations and people out there who need legal help and also not to see that helping a certain segment of society affects us all, in varying degrees of directness.

-- BarbPitman - 21 Jan 2008