THE FIXER ISN'T JOKING

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January 19, 2007

Charlie_mccallum_2 Folks, you can't make this stuff up.

Charlie McCallum, local attorney of "The Fixer" fame, is not happy with all the lawyer jokes we tell. He fears that we tell them because they are true -- and he would know. So he wrote an article for the most recent edition of the American Bar Association's "Business Law Today" decrying the lack of professionalism in the shysterhood. Charlie writes that one remedy is "a fanatic, almost compulsive, dedication to client service".

No doubt that professional fanaticism was what drove Charlie to ensure that as chairman, secretary, and corporate counsel for Butterworth Hospital (now Spectrum Health Corporation) that its legal business went to the law firm of Warner Norcross & Judd at which he could rely upon an attorney there, by the name of Charlie McCallum, to provide that compulsive dedication to the fat Butterworth account. Well, what's a little conflict of interest between friends?

Apparently it was Charlie's insight into ethical issues like this that prompted the American Bar Association to annoint him as chairman of its Committee on Professional Ethics. And lawyers wonder why they are the butt of our jokes.

Posted on January 19, 2007 at 11:11 AM in Lawyers & the Courts | Permalink

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