S.C. Lawyers In Need of Charm School
Civil and domestic lawyers frequently complain about the rudeness and lack of civility among their peers. I've even heard Judges remark on it. In South Carolina, things have gotten so bad that lawyers have to take a one-hour civility class and re-take their oath, with the added passage:
"To opposing parties and their counsel, I pledge fairness, integrity, and civility, not only in court, but also in all written and oral communications."
If this is representative of how lawyers treat witnesses in South Carolina, a career change rather than an oath might be in order:
A witness complained that a lawyer told her before a deposition, "You are a mean-spirited, vicious witch and I don't like your face and I don't like your voice."
Apparently, the tradition of rudeness and worse has a long history in South Carolina:
In 1856, a cane-wielding South Carolina lawyer who was a member of Congress beat an anti-slavery senator from Massachusetts unconscious on the Senate floor. In 1897, Will Thurmond, a prosecutor and father of the late Senator Strom Thurmond, shot and killed a political enemy who had insulted him on the street.
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