Review: Trapped in the Lawyers' Den A nonfiction book by Thelma N. McKoy [ ORDER NOW ] Review written by Gerald C. Griffin, Ph.D A touching, moving, graphic tale, Trapped in the Lawyers' Den with Bloodsuckers is a dramatic human interest story of one wronged person's true grit in standing up, alone, against the powerful and overwhelming legal profession wanting to silence her; standing up against attorneys and judges and lawyer bureaucrat-politicians, demanding justice from them when justice was the last thing on their minds. It is the painful, heart-wrenching story of one person's discovery of illusion--the illusion of justice, that illusion fostered by lawyers for their own gain of wealth and power. It is the story of the poor underdog, without resources, up against the rich giant with limitless resources. It is the story of an American tragedy. Thelma N. McKoy, a widow and dedicated high school teacher living alone in Charlotte, North Carolina, is involved in an auto accident and seeks an attorney to represent her. She finds one, a lawyer who, with the aid of medical cronies, attempts to fleece McKoy by defrauding her and her insurance company, in the process catapulting McKoy into sickness, poverty, mental-emotional anguish, and retirement without financial benefits. But this is only a harbinger of the horror to come to McKoy. She discovers and documents her lawyer's illegal activity against her and sets out to expose him--warn the public that he's a criminal systematically bilking its members. However, as related by McKoy, when she sets out to expose fraudulent acts of her attorney to the North Carolina legal profession, she discovers that all of the attorneys in the state belong to a "lawyer mafia"--the bloodsuckers--protecting attorneys accused of wrongdoing. The lawyer mafia, according to McKoy, is motivated by greed and the unsavory quest for unpoliced judicial and political power enabling lawyers to financially fleece clients at will--particularly poor, uneducated clients easily intimidated and manipulated--while leaving no real recourse for the clients so victimized. The North Carolina lawyer mafia, McKoy contends, is directed by the North Carolina State Bar. Upon reporting her attorney's wrongdoings against her to the State Bar, her complaints are rejected, the State Bar protecting the attorney's fraud from being exposed. Shocked, McKoy takes her grievance to other state agencies and officials, but receives a deaf ear, these agencies and officials controlled by the lawyer mafia. Then, to expose her lawyer, McKoy attempts to sue him but finds that no other attorney in North Carolina will represent her. She has been blackballed from legal representation. Disillusioned but undaunted, McKoy, with singular courage, takes her grievances against her lawyer--and those against other attorneys protecting him--public, creating a stir among the lawyer mafia, a concern that her public denouncements of the legal profession could eventually snowball a movement blowing the lid off of the legal profession's good guy public image serving to mask its covert wrongdoings. This couldn't be permitted. McKoy had to be silenced. This task fell to the police, McKoy relates, who are controlled by lawyer mafia politicians. McKoy is placed under illegal police surveillance aimed at curtailing her public outcries against attorneys and the corruption of the legal profession. This begins her fear and terror. Then an undercover policeman illegally harasses McKoy in a public park and attempts to plant a pistol in her purse so as to frame her as a dangerous criminal needing to be put away. But the attempt is foiled and the illegal police surveillance and harassment of McKoy are brought to the attention of the media who expose it, resulting in embarrassment for the police and lawyer officials directing them, forcing them into double-talking cover up. McKoy takes the police and lawyer officials into court, suing them for violating her civil and Constitutional rights. But because she has been blackballed by attorneys, McKoy is unable to find an attorney in North Carolina who will represent her and the judge won't hear her case until she is able to find one who will do so--a Catch 22 situation. McKoy is forced to go outside of North Carolina--"as far away as possible," she's advised, to find an attorney. She locates one in Los Angeles who finally agrees to represent her, but at a huge fee, requiring McKoy to mortgage her home and establish a fund-raising drive to raise the money to pay his fee. In return, the lawyer, in cahoots with the lawyer officials McKoy is suing and the judge hearing the case, sabotages McKoy's lawsuit, causing it to be dismissed, the result of conspiracy among the lawyers and court fixing by the judge. McKoy's lawyer later admits this to her, confessing that he had to go along with the conspiracy and court fixing because of threats to his life by the North Carolina lawyer mafia. With his confession, McKoy's terror accelerates, especially fear for her life. Still, with no choice but to represent herself in court, McKoy sues her Los Angeles attorney for misrepresentation, attempting to recover the huge fee she had paid him. The L.A. attorney defaults on the suit, not wishing to return to North Carolina to answer her complaint, thereby putting his life in jeopardy again. But if the default is allowed to stand, McKoy's charges against him would be construed as being true, incriminating members of the North Carolina lawyer mafia for criminal conspiracy and court fixing. This couldn't be allowed. So more court fixing and the default is illegally rescinded, allowing the L.A. attorney--after strong assurances of his safety--to return to North Carolina to answer McKoy's complaint of misrepresentation. McKoy maintains that this jury trial was a farce; a stacked deck of more lawyer conspiracy and court fixing against her, the judge's remarks at the trial so inflammatory regarding her that there was no way the jury was going to find the L.A. attorney guilty. The jury found him not guilty, and McKoy's appeal of the judge's biased manner and prejudiced remarks toward her in the courtroom is rejected. Stunned over this flagrant, never-ending travesty of injustice; ridiculed and defamed by lawyer smear campaigns against her; left broke, in debt, physically ailing, and destitute, McKoy exhausts her resources to fight on against the lawyer mafia. Except for one--her book. And her book fights on with sharp, indicting clarity, expanding upon the views of others, these views a collective consciousness of the legal profession, this ubiquitous perception even carried over into humor for relief. In the movie comedy, Rustler's Rhapsody, a parody of Gene Autry-Roy Rogers offshoot-type westerns, we come to the inevitable good guy-bad guy showdown, with a twist, There's no bad guy. Instead, the showdown, is between two bonafide good guys, both dressed to the hilt in good guy garb and proclaimed virtue. It is well established in the movie that when a true good guy draws his gun on another, he only shoots the gun out of his opponent's hand and certainly does not aim to inflict bodily harm on his opponent. But as the two good guys draw on one another, one shoots, the other in the shoulder, a definite good guy no-no. Bewildered and shocked, the injured good guy glares disbelievingly at the other and shrieks, "You're not a good guy at all!" At which the other good guy smiles back with a what-do-you-expect smugness and admonishes, "I'm a lawyer, you idiot." Trapped in the Lawyers' Den with Bloodsuckers clarifies more seriously, and in more pungent detail, what is meant by this satirical script line, "I'm a lawyer, you idiot!" The theme of McKoy's book is that not only are lawyers bad guys under the deceitful guise of good guys but that they are the worst of bad guys, monopolizing our society and its important decision making; corrupting our society for their benefit; eroding away our liberties and Constitutional rights while proclaiming the best of lofty virtue. This book is an excellent read, the story well worth telling, making its points with alarming impact, a reminder again that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and a caution too that perhaps the legal profession is in need of closer vigilance by American citizens. After reading Trapped in the Lawyer's Den with Bloodsuckers, you will not look at life quite the same way again. [ ORDER NOW] [ Back to CALR's Main Page ]