I Am a Paralegal. Does That Make Me a Sociopath?

A popular anarchist view is that politicians, and the citizens who support their systems, and the systems that enforce their systems (police, judges, lawyers, etc.) are inherently sociopathic in nature in that they either directly or indirectly (and knowingly) harm others and/or take away their innate human rights.    

And, OK. I get it. So I’m a sociopath. I happen to salute the American flag, I happen to think some drug laws are OK, I am not so sure all taxes are bad, and I also happen to work professionally in a legal system that is rife with inconsistencies and lies. I am a litigation paralegal. 

Here’s What My Job Entails:    

My main job every day is to gather evidence from both parties, request production where information seems to be lacking, and help the senior attorney organize a strategy for our client that will best accomplish their goals.    

I work VERY closely with the client. I am responsible for making sure they stay on track with what is required of them. Most of these individuals are discombobulated, their lives are in ruin, their kids are being abused, their spouses are cheating on them and stealing money from the community assets, they didn’t MEAN to run over that lady and now they’re facing 1st degree murder, their ex revenge-porned them and made money off it. How do I cope???   

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I get to sort through the muck and make sense of it all. I am very proud of what I do. And there is NEVER a dull moment. But the thing that keeps me going is this: I have been a victim of the inadequacies and injustices of this current legal system. I know what it's like to know the truth, to tell the truth, to have have really good evidence, and have every best interest in the universe, and get the raw deal. I know what our clients are going through. I know how to help them. I know what is effective. I know what isn't. 

I think the system is kind of rotten. The least I can do is help within it. 

Recently we appealed a 1st degree murder conviction. The man had been exceptionally inebriated and inadvertently smashed into a pedestrian with his car, instantly killing her. He was sentenced to life in prison for premeditated, deliberate murder of a woman he had never met, primarily because the defense attorney had been sleeping on the job, and secondarily because the jury had misunderstood the verdict instructions.    

Our client should be held accountable for his actions. And he certainly will. He killed a woman. But he is not a violent, hardened criminal, out for blood. He was a man grieving the death of a loved one, drinking too much, and getting behind the wheel. There were also other individuals present whose actions contributed to the incident of the woman's death. It was not cut and dry. 

We were able to effectively communicate--using a “sociopathic” system--that this man was a good person who had done a bad thing, and that the jury had misunderstood the verdict instructions. Supreme Court judges heard our complaint, and they reversed the Justice Court’s ruling. Our client will either face a retrial, or there will be a plea bargain. It will be up to the DA. 

It is TERRIBLE what the mother of the victim went through. We do not wish her any harm by retrying the case. However, our client does not deserve to be treated like a vicious criminal. And we hope to address some of the actions of other individuals on the scene who contributed to this woman's death. 

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Another case I recently worked on involved a father in his 30’s who had lost custody of his children to the mother. He hired us after 2 years of knee-deep court proceedings gone awry. 

He dropped off a few large files of court proceedings and expert reports. I spent the next two weeks reviewing the file. The whole case was a bit of a kangaroo. The mother had been uninvolved and absent in the children’s lives for over 2 years. She was a drug addict.    

The father was the sole custodian, held a steady job, had tested clean for drugs consistently for three years (which is important in a custody court). But mom had turned over a new leaf, had been attending rehab, and had decided to be involved again. She wanted more custody. Supervised visitation was ordered, with the intention of increasing her time with the children gradually.    

Suddenly, mom began making unexpected and highly convenient allegations that the father was abusive and violent, even though he had no violent history with her or anyone, and she had had no contact with him for over two years except when recently exchanging the children. Her visitations with the children were extremely limited, brief, and supervised. She was a complete stranger to the children. She would have no way of knowing anything about our client's parenting or his life. It was all very outrageous.   

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I read the initial investigation into the allegations. The social workers interviewed the children and assessed the situation and were not able to find anything wrong with dad. The kids seemed very happy with him. They said only nice things about him. They had no behavioral issues at that time. The case should have been dropped.    

Then dad was found in possession of marijuana paraphernalia. It belonged to a friend. He hadn’t smoked in years. But the kids were immediately taken away and given to mom, who had suddenly made a full recovery from 6 years of heavy addiction and the lifestyle that accompanies it. 

Now, the child protective services were quoting her abuse allegations in a petition to the court, saying that “a collateral witness” said he was a drug addict, he was violent, abusive, neglectful, etc. The collateral witness was the mother, who had been absent for two years and had no contact with him or history of abuse from him in the past.    

From this point forward, the report was gospel. It was quoted, reworded, embellished, and regurgitated, until it resembled something else entirely. The allegations were magically treated as fact, despite the fact that they had been investigated and had been resoundingly unsubstantiated. 

It was fascinating to me to read each successive court ruling and watch as this snowballed out of control. 

Dad was out of the picture, the kids were being raised by maniac mom, and THEN, the kids started developing behavioral issues. Severe ones. So the child protective services came back in and said that these issues were proof that the father had abused them…even though the father had been out of the picture now for months, and the kids had had no behavioral issues prior to this separation.     

For two full years our client fought the system. He had hired and fired two attorneys, followed court recommendations to the hilt, plead with the court 4 times, appealed once, and was flogged each time.    

It was ludicrous. I couldn’t wrap my head around the blatant miscarriage of justice.    

And then we came along. 

I reviewed the file for inconsistencies in findings, faulty investigative procedures, erroneous witness statements, and unsubstantiated allegations. What I found was an abundance of the above, and a complete absence of any evidence or chronology indicating the father had perpetrated anything against the children. Out of the dozens of therapy reports, dozens of CASA reports, and dozens of CPS assessments, there was NOTHING to point to his harming the children except for one thing:  The mother’s initial allegations, which we know were immediately and overwhelmingly unsubstantiated.    

We had to fix this. And we did. I put together a time line of events, exhibits, and reports, and the attorney drafted a 20-page tour of the case up to that point, including law and argument. We submitted it to the new Judge (which was another thing the attorney did—got a new judge). He looked at our complaint. He reviewed the other party’s allegations.    

It was supposed to be a 2-day evidentiary hearing.    

It ended up being 2-hours. Our client got custody. (Or rather, he got MORE of it. And he’ll be getting more as the months go by.)   

The whole damn time, I kept thinking, “These evaluators are completely devoid of any ethics or real human emotion. They are sociopaths!”