News: Paris Goes to Jail

There are a few lessons to gather from Paris Hilton's latest run-in with the law. One of them is the power of hubris: this is a woman who can literally afford to be chauffeured every single place she wants to go every single day of her life and yet she chooses to drive drunk. I have zero sympathy for Ms. Hilton; it's a funny news story now, but it won't be so funny when she plows her SUV into some innocent motorist at a traffic light. So I think a 45-day sentence for repeated violations is quite fair.

Another is the problems of having an entourage. According to the news story, Hilton's "liason" testified in court that she believed that Paris could legally drive. Although like the judge I'm not convinced by that, I do have to admit that sometimes you can get so many "yes" people around you that you put up blinders to reality. True friends, who don't sugarcoat things for you, are hard to find.

Finally, there are the problems specific to being an attorney. In this case, I'm sure the Hilton family could afford some of the best counsel money could buy. Even though her lawyers were probably stellar, however, even a great attorney may have a hard time getting a client to follow his or her advice. The number one duty of a lawyer is to successfully advocate and advise your client, and these lawyers, through negligence or (much more likely) the noncompliance of their client, did not do so.