Afterword

• Author: James F. Haggerty
• Profession: Lawyer
• Pages: 335-345

335

AFTERWORD

“But what about justice?” my brother asked after reading an early

draft of this book. “Aren’t you worried that the work you do

skews the legal system in favor of those who know how to use the

media to their advantage?”

It’s a fair question. Many observers worry that, in using outside

audiences to inuence the course of the litigation process, justice

suffers. Or, to put it more bluntly: vicious, amoral spinmeisters

use their “black magic” to tilt the scales of justice unfairly, twist-

ing and bending the rule of law to meet their own nefarious ends;

manipulating media and other public audiences in legal disputes

allows the waves of public passion that swell in the wake of a

media barrage to engulf the reasoned, dispassionate dispensation

of justice.

Well, if you’ve read this far, I’m going to assume you know that

I don’t believe this. In fact, I believe the opposite: properly using

the channels of media can actually level the playing eld, elimi-

nating many of the advantages that money, ideology, inuence,

and class have long brought to our legal system. I would argue

that effective use of extrajudicial tools in the conduct of litiga-

tion and other legal disputes actually helps ensure justice in many

cases. This is particularly true as both lawyers and their clients

become more adept at using the tools of public relations to bring

the case to the court of public opinion and as new technologies

such as websites and social media platforms such as Facebook,

Twitter, and Instagram offer a scalability of message that ensures

even the faintest voices will be heard.

Many lawyers may now be imagining the giants of legal history

turning in their graves at the mere thought. Remember, however,

that some of the best legal theorists in history were legal realists

as well. It was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, for example, who

once said, “Theory is the dinner jacket you take off before chang-

ing a at tire.”1 The law has always been anchored in the practi-

cal realities of business, government, and personal life. We are a

country founded on expediency; on compromise; on the realities

of concepts such as property, regional loyalty, and economic prac-

ticality. Grand theories of justice may be the foundation of our

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