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CBS Fires Lawyer for Post About Las Vegas Shooting

By William Vogeler, Esq. on October 03, 2017 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Charles Dickens coined the phrase "the law is a ass," and unfortunately sometimes lawyers embody it.

Let me not cast the first stone because everybody makes stupid remarks. I remember a judge once interrupted my argument to say, "stop that galloping nonsense!"

But Hayley Geftman-Gold's comments give lawyers a really bad name -- as if that were possible. Her Facebook posts came at the worst possible time.

Las Vegas Shootings

As victims of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history lay dead or injured, Geftman-Gold posted these comments on Facebook:

"If they wouldn't do anything when children were murdered I have no hope that the Repugs will ever do the right thing," she said. "I'm actually not even sympathetic bc country music fans often are republican gun toters."

No explanation need; enough said. CBS promptly fired her.

"Her views as expressed on social media are deeply unacceptable to all of us at CBS," the network said. "Our hearts go out to the victims in Las Vegas and their families."

Geftman-Gold later apologized, but the damage was already done and her ill-conceived words were immortalized in the media.

Foolish Lawyers

In the age of social media, her comments were not the worst on record. They were undeniably insensitive in the aftermath of such a tragedy.

People already hate lawyers for a world of reasons, however, and Geftman-Gold gave them another one. Victoria Pynchon, writing for Forbes, said hate is a normal reaction because the top lawyers are "blissfully ignorant of and often hostile" to most people.

"People hate lawyers because they represent the interests of people and corporations without really caring who they are, what they did, what harm they caused, or, how culpable they are," she said.

Or maybe it's like the saying goes: 99% of the lawyers give the others a bad name.

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