To the Editor:
In response to "On Good Times and Lawyers" an editorial in the July 23 issue of The Dartmouth:
It was a trial lawyer who once said, "It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet, there are those who love it!" Daniel Webster spoke these words while arguing in front of the Supreme Court in 1818 in defense of our own Dartmouth College.
I sympathize with the loss of the rope swing. I spent many summer afternoons jumping from the same swing. However, Mr. Curran's attack on all trial lawyers goes well beyond his complaints concerning personal injury liability.
Trial lawyers in both the public and private sectors provide invaluable aid to their clients both in personal injury cases as well as inumerable other areas of trial litigation.
The true enemy in the rope swing situation is our society's willingness to let people disregard responsibility for their own actions. It is the juries, not the trial lawyers, who permit individuals to receive huge sums of money for their injuries.
When juries step up and demand that people take responsibility for their own actions, huge jury awards will go away and maybe we will be able to re-hang a rope swing on the Connecticut River.
