Problem Areas in Legal Ethics

Mariline Marcelino-Lee

FEU Institute of Law

I.

Give a brief but complete synopsis of the film The Rainmaker.

The story is about a young lawyer named Rudy Baylor who is a homeless
graduating law student. As he is so desperate for a job, he landed on the firm
of a lawyer named J. Lyman Stone a.k.a Bruiser. Baylor together with Deck
Schifflet, the guy who has gone to law school but failed the bar exam six times
does the ambulance chasing for the firm. It was Schifflet who demonstrates
to the inexperienced Baylor how it is done.
Because Bruiser is a crook of a lawyer, he has to go into hiding, so Rudy has
to form a partnership with Schifflet. Together, the two men continued
handling the cases they were able to ambulance chase, one of which is the
insurance company called Great Benefit, which has denied their client Donny
Ray who has leukemia, funds for a bone marrow transplant. Hence, Donny
Ray ultimately succumbs to his illness and died. Great Benefit claims that the
leukemia was a preexisting condition, and that bone marrow transplants are
experimental.
Rudy has to go up against a large law firm that represents Great Benefit and
in the middle of doing so he gets involved with Kelly, whose husband beats
her. In his desire to protect her from her husbands brutal hands, Rudy ended
up killing the husband as they struggle to escape him. To protect Rudy from
being implicated in Cliff's death, Kelly tells the police she killed her husband
in self-defense.
As the case against Great Benefit goes to trial, Rudy and Schifflet come to
know a former Great Benefit employee named Jackie Lemanczyk and through
her Rudy is able to unearth the scheme that Great Benefit has been doing to
each of their clients and that is to deny every insurance claim submitted
regardless of its validity.
Though Lemanczyks testimony was stricken from the record, Rudys skillful
cross-examination of Great Benefit's president, Wilfred Keeley, the jury finds
for the plaintiff. However, despite their victory, the grieving parents of Donny
Ray receive no pay out and Rudy gets no fee as Great Benefits quickly
declares itself bankrupt, thus allowing it to avoid paying fifty million dollars
in punitive damages.
The story ends with Rudy abandoning his practice to focus on teaching law
instead.

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Problem Areas in Legal Ethics

Mariline Marcelino-Lee

FEU Institute of Law

II.

Please provide concise but in-depth and insightful answers to the

following questions:
1. What do you understand by the term rainmaker? Who among the
characters in the film do you think is being referred to as the rainmaker?
The term rainmaker originated from the practice of the Indian tribes in the
Southwestern United States, wherein chosen native men performed weather
modification rituals in order to invoke rain. The chosen rainmaker during
those times held a very elite place in society since the survival of his entire
tribe rested upon his rainmaking ability.
In these modern times, a rainmaker refers to an individual who brings in a lot
of money. Merriam Webster amiably defined it as a partner in a law firm who
brings in new business, a person whose influence can initiate progress or
ensure success. For me, a rainmaker is one who can bring in the firm deep
pocketed clients or clients whose case could bring in a lot of money.
In this film, I looked at Rudy Baylor and Deck Shifflet as rainmakers for they
were tasked to ambulance chance in order to bring in clients for the firm.
2. If you were Rudy Baylor, would you accept the $175,000.00 offer of
settlement by Great Benefit? Why or why not? If not, what amount of
settlement offer, if any, do you think is fair and which you would accept?
If I were Rudy, I would not accept the $175,000.00 settlement by Great
Benefit as there is really no amount sufficient to compensate for the loss of
ones life. I would not accept any amount of settlement offer because for me,
what is fair is for Great Benefit to be penalized for their blatant denial of the
claim despite the fact that it is financially justified in investing in bone
marrow clinic as reflected in the report of its own medical committee. The
actual and punitive damages granted by the jury were just.
3. Cite the ethical violations committed by Rudy Baylor in the film.
Even before Rudy passed the bar examination, he entered into contracts
with clients, practiced law without a license, solicited clients improperly, and
implied to Donny Rays family that he could file a suit on their behalf, when,
in truth, he was not yet authorized to do so. All these clearly run afoul of the
legal ethics. He also permitted Deck to breach multiple ethical rules, such as
letting him do the cross-examination. During the pre-trial preparation, Deck
discovered that their office was bugged and their phones were tapped by the
opposing counsel. In retaliation, Rudy faked a phone call to one of the jury
members in order to sway their opinion and to be able to replace the juror by
a more sympathetic one. The worst he has committed is when he
participated in the killing of Kellys husband. Though he had no intent to do it

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Problem Areas in Legal Ethics

Mariline Marcelino-Lee

FEU Institute of Law

and that what led to the commission of the crime was because he wanted to
protect Kelly and himself, it is no excuse for him to let her lie to the police
about it.
4. Cite the ethical violations committed by Leo Drummond in the film.
Drummond is a very expensive skillful lawyer but violates legal ethics, among
which I have noticed are:
- He does not know Rudy Baylor but he vouches for him to try the case.
- He connived with the judge to pressure Rudy to settle.
- He arranged for the key witnesses to be paid and be fired from the
company before the deposition.
- He tapped Rudys phone and bugged his office
All these contradicts the mandate that a lawyer shall at all times uphold the
integrity and dignity of the legal profession and conduct himself with
courtesy, fairness and candor toward his professional colleagues.
5. Discuss the ethical import of the exclusion of the documents provided by
Jackie Lemancyzk (i.e., the employee who was forced to resign from Great
Benefit).
Jackie Lemancyzks senior claims manual has a section which is not available
in the senior claims manual presented in court. When Rudy tried to examine
Jackie regarding the said manual and other documents, the defense moved
for them to be struck from the proceeding as they were allegedly stolen work
papers. The exclusion was just proper not only because it was not timely
offered but also because presenting stolen documents is a manifestation of
disregard to courtesy, fairness, candor, which a lawyer is expected to conduct
himself with. Subsequently, however, Rudy was able to examine the CEO of
Great Benefits based on the said documents as Rudy was able to present to
the court jurisprudence dictating that stolen documents are admissible if the
lawyers played no part in the theft.
The defense could have insisted on their objection as the questioned
documents were not proffered on time, which they probably opted not to do
so for they took part in concealing this document and Jackie Lemancyzk from
the court. This is a clear manifestation of the suppression of facts and
concealment of a witness capable of establishing the facts of the case.
6. Comment on Leo Drummond as a lawyer. Compare him to Ed Concannon (of
The Verdict). Are they good lawyers?
Leo Drummond and Ed Concannon are of the same feather. They are both
well-equipped lawyers but they use their skills only to gain victory and

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Problem Areas in Legal Ethics

Mariline Marcelino-Lee

FEU Institute of Law

prestige without regards to the very purpose of the legal profession which is
to aid the judiciary in providing justice to those who deserve it.
7. Give your commentary on the closing statement of the film:
"Every lawyer, at least once in every case, feels himself crossing
a line that he doesn't really mean to cross... it just happens... and
if you cross it enough times it disappears forever. And then your
nothing but another lawyer joke. Just another shark in the dirty
water."
This commentary is analogous to the anecdote of the boiling frog
which describes a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is
that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is
placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the
danger and will be cooked to death. The anecdote is often used to
demonstrate that when people frequently, either willingly or
unwillingly, do things they should not do, they ended up being
past feeling about it to the point that they totally become without
principles.
Lawyers, especially the new ones, like Rudy Baylor, would think
that committing a violation of a little of this and that would not
really make them less of a lawyer that the society expect them to
be and would even rationalize that their improper action was
necessary to obtain the justice they are fighting for. Little do they
know that committing a violation once would lead them to
committing it again and again till they lose sight of all the
righteousness and ethics that they ought to manifest in their legal
professions.
Bonus:
Feel free to give other inputs/insights you may have on the ethical and ethicsrelated issues presented in the film.
Legal ethics and professional responsibility is more than just a subject that one
should pass in the bar examination. It is something that people in the legal
profession should bear in mind as they perform their duty of being servant of the
law. Indeed, it is not easy as depicted in this film, because lawyers could often get to
a cross-road where they are forced to choose between doing what is ethical and
protecting their own interest. Making the right choice even gets harder when you
see that almost everyone in the legal practice shamelessly conducts themselves
unethically. In this movie, Rudy Baylor was not only exposed to lawyers without
ethics but also encountered a judge who palpably colluded with his opponent just to
settle the case. It is really unimaginably difficult for a lawyer not to succumb to all

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Problem Areas in Legal Ethics

Mariline Marcelino-Lee

FEU Institute of Law

these temptations. Nevertheless, the code of ethics is the very law of the legal
standards and professionalism which all lawyers are bound to respect. Hence, it
must always be obeyed and carefully depicted by all the people in the legal practice.

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