The rusty knife of justice.*

Justice is not swift.

It is no duel that ends quickly with a clean bullet or a piercing thrust. No, justice is trench warfare: its wheels are grimy and caked with weary sweat and bloody frustration and the dust of endless dawns spent reporting to the battlefield. It grinds slowly on, and some combatants fall by the wayside, too exhausted and disheartened to continue. They have no more resources; they have other pressing needs; their time spent fighting has taken them away from livelihoods and families. Those who remain persevere through doggedness, fatalism, belief in the cause...they endure, and so, persevere.

Few people see beyond the first burst of publicity surrounding the filing of a lawsuit. There are months of investigations, research, appearances and re-appearances, motions and cross-motions, judgments and appeals. Clients, so filled with energy and purpose at commencing action at last, must be encouraged: must be told to buck up, to settle in and keep coming back to the courthouse, to keep asking for more leave from work, to wake early and pass through the metal detectors to wait still more in the crowded court hallways where tempers flare and children wail. After all this, sometimes their patience is rewarded. Sometimes not.

Slow, creaking, lumbering justice. The price of civilized society.

*First published July 2009.