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Summary Of The Buffalo Creek Disaster By Gerald M. Stern

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The Buffalo Creek Disaster written by Gerald M. Stern helped me understand the different decisions a lawyer must go through to help their clients. The Buffalo Creek Disaster was a man-made disaster that occurred in February 1972. The Buffalo Creek Mining Company’s coal waste refuse pile collapsed, leaving over 125 people dead and 4,000 people mentally distraught. The Arnold & Porter law firm was reached out to by survivors for help and Gerald M. Stern was appointed as the lawyer for the case, who eventually won $13.5 million for the survivors. While reading the book, I evaluated the ethical conduct of the relevant characters. I personally felt that the conduct of Gerald M. Stern was ethical. He always put his client’s needs first while making …show more content…

First off, there was a lot of corruption in West Virginia, which was overlooked. The fact that the coal mining industry basically ran the state and got away with a lot of things is not a new concept. Big companies today have a lot of input in our government, and the only surprise to me was that this has been going on for so long. I believe that our legal system is very corrupted by big corporations and the fact that nothing has been done for this many years changed my view to realize that this issue will never be fixed. Another thing that changed my view of the legal system was the issues about PTSD. I thought that PTSD had been widely known and the fact that it was not believed to be a real thing until the Buffalo Creek Disaster is shocking. It made me realize that things are always changing, and it takes time for the legal system to catch up. Lastly, I learned that judges can be very biased, which is actually a little scary. I saw this with Judge Hall and with the Judge in the Larry Nassar case. Although, in my opinion, their hearts were in the right place, it is not fair for judges to be biased in making decisions about cases. Our legal system allows judges to make important decisions on their own, which is a huge responsibility, and if it falls into the wrong hands, there could be severe

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