Welcome to another edition of the Lawyers Stink newsletter. This month we're going to briefly look at who's really to blame for the mess we call a legal system in America.

As much as we would like to do so, we cannot simply pin all of the blame on the lawyers. Blaming the lawyers would be very convenient indeed and would make us all feel a little better. After all, very few people like lawyers anyway, so heaping all of the blame on lawyers for America’s less than ethical legal system would seem a perfectly logical fit.

Hey, don’t think for a moment that I’m defending the lawyers — I’m not (as if you really needed clarification on that point), but lawyers have plenty of company when it comes to stretching the facts, skirting the truth and evading the issues.

In order for there to be a lawsuit in the first place, somebody involved somewhere in the case is not telling the whole truth. While there may well be two sides to every story, especially when lawyers get involved, there can only be one true story. This is where the rest of us fit in quite handily.

The inalienable rights we enjoy as American citizens include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. With lawyers lurking at every corner, that saying should be amended to say life, liberty and the right to sue the heck out of each other.

The United States is one supercharged litigious culture and Americans are retaining lawyers in record breaking numbers. We are suing each other and getting sued all over the place. If you haven’t been sued yet, don’t feel left out in the cold.

If you live long enough in today’s increasingly contentious society, sooner or later your number will be pulled and you’ll get to experience lawyers up close and way too personally. If you’re an entrepreneur who owns and operates a business enterprise in America, be it large or small in size, you have probably already been hammered by a lawyer or two (or three, or four or five), regardless of whether you have done anything wrong or not.

Getting along with others and attempting to mend petty differences between ourselves seem to be old-fashioned and out of date concepts. We are quick to scurry off to the nearest law office and sue others over the most nonsensical, inconsequential issues.

Have you ever wondered why lawyers wield so much control over virtually every aspect of American life? Most of us need only to take a long, good, hard look in the mirror to see why lawyers run the show. Like it or not, we have played right into their greedy mitts.

Like fleas in the infamous flea circus, we have been trained to run to lawyers at every opportunity. Getting even with others, or better yet, getting some money from someone else is the name of the game nowadays.

Come on, we need to get a grip. Let’s face the facts. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, has a beef with someone else over something or another every once in a while. But with lawyers running rampant all over the place, we all too often look to get even instead of trying to get along with others.

It’s not an uncommon occurrence to overhear small children on the playground threatening to sue each other when they don’t get their way. I wonder where they learned this garbage in the first place? We know full well where they acquired the litigious lingo. We, the adults, showed them the way. Talk about setting a nice example to follow.

We frequently see the most trivial of disagreements between so-called adults quickly escalate into all out legal warfare with lawyers on both sides calling the shots. Without realizing it, we have fallen prey to the concealed and secret traps the lawyers have laid out for us. Now the lawyers have us right where they want us.

We think we’re big and bad, suing anyone and everyone who dares to stand in our way. We see ourselves as tough hombres — kicking butt left and right. We strut around thinking nobody better mess with us — or we’ll sic our lawyer on them! Man, have we been bamboozled.

In reality, we’re merely pathetic pawns in the lawyers’ big chess game. They move us right where they want us, whenever and wherever they feel like doing so. They control the action — we sure don’t. They make the rules — we certainly don’t. They make the big cheese while we just keep paying and paying and paying some more. We’re big and bad all right. What a joke.

These facts alone should scare the hell out of every man, woman and child in America. Sadly, they don’t — because we’re way too busy suing, getting sued or thinking about a way to sue each other in droves to notice or to even care.

While we’re at it, let’s examine some unsettling facts relating to the lawyers, people and lawsuits in general.

When two or more people have a disagreement, it is impossible for everyone involved to be 100% right. This should be intuitive. In order for both parties to insist they are right and the other involved is wrong, it requires that one or both sides engage in some form of truth stretching activities (formerly known as “lying”). There can be no denying that stretching the truth plays right into the lawyer’s hands. Lawyers like disagreements. Scratch that — I should have more accurately said they love disagreements.

These disagreements, whether large and small in nature, can quickly escalate to an all out war in today’s sue happy society. When people get mad, they want to get even. When they want to get even, they go out and hire a lawyer. What lawyer wouldn’t love this kind of action?

Once lawyers are called into the fracas, the battle lines are drawn in the sand. Both sides begin digging in and the real fighting starts in earnest. The more acrimonious the feud between the combatants becomes, the more invaluable the lawyer appears to be. Bitter battles fought out in an acerbic atmosphere can make a lawyer downright giddy with glee.

The moment the warring factions officially initiate the fighting vis-à-vis the filing of one or more lawsuits, the combatants start paying the lawyers. With the money flowing in and the prospects excellent for embroiled, protracted litigation, the lawyer’s coffers are overflowing with cash. Cha-ching! This sweet sound of success is music to the lawyer’s ears. Need we say more?

When it’s all finally said and done and the smoke settles over the battlefield, only the lawyers remain standing. With their heads held high and their pockets stuffed with cash, the lawyers are declared the winners. And what becomes of the parties who initiated the lawsuits against one another? Out of money and out of gas, they’re summarily cast aside as inevitable casualties of war. Their torn and tattered carcasses are nothing more than expendable collateral damage strewn across the battle field.

How many times are people way too quick to pull the trigger and take their differences to court? Way too many. Who ultimately emerges victorious each and every time this occurs? The lawyers, of course. Who, in the end, are the real losers in this 21st Century form of warfare? America, that’s who. That’s the big rub.

We, collectively as a nation, lose and lose big time. Why are we so incapable of grasping this simplistic concept? Why can’t we get this? Why do we constantly turn to lawyers, of all people, to right all wrongs and make things right? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it? No. In fact, it doesn’t make any sense at all.

But Americans, finely trained (or should we say brainwashed?) to run to lawyers to solve all of their problems or perhaps strike it rich, keep on suing each other like it’s going out of style — which it isn’t. The staggering cost of needless litigation assessed to each and every person living in the United States continues to soar out of sight.