Scranton Malpractice: Doctors and Lawyers and...Counties?

Professional malpractice, whether it's involving doctors or lawyers, is a hot topic in our increasingly litigious society. That's why this article in The Times-Tribune caught my eye. For those of you who inevitably won't click through to it, the article lays out a case for possible "municipal malpractice" in hiring 5 local lawyers with questionable qualifications to work on a bond issue. It turns out that "none is a member of either the National Association of Bond Lawyers or the Pennsylvania Association of Bond Lawyers."

Wait, it gets better. Some don't even practice in areas of finance and municipal law. Sure, there's at least one who does medical malpractice and personal injury. But where's the expertise in finance, municipal law and bond issues in particular? I especially liked this quote from the article: "Mr. Munchak conceded that hiring an attorney who does not have a background in finance to work on a municipal bond transaction doesn’t make sense." The real issue here is one of transparency and accountability, not finger-pointing.

This brings up the point as far as The Scranton Front Door Pages: is there a need for a new classification: scranton/municipal? That'd be the place for Scranton Lawyers Municipal Malpractice and Scranton Insurance Municipal Malpractice to promote themselves. While I invite local law firms who specialize in medical malpractice and insurance agencies who issue malpractice insurance for professionals to avail themselves of the service, I'm not sure I want to get involved with any municipal malpractice at all!

A Local Scranton Directory of Businesses and Professionals that's Actually Local: The Scranton Portal

The "Local" Scranton business directory that pops up in the search engine results when you search for a Scranton business or professional is usually put up by a big advertiser who is trying to cross promote its own paid classified listings. It's not even in the area, as a business. Whether it's a "Yellow Pages" directory, a "scraped" directory (that grabbed all its listings from the Yellow Pages) or some other generic classified site, it's usually useless. If you want to actually find out something about a local business so you can pick up the phone and call them, you're usually out of luck.

Gee, wouldn't it be great to find a local directory that's actually based here in Scranton? Even better, how about a directory that targets the specific things that people in Scranton are looking for? Say, for example, you're looking for local attractions in Scranton. You search for "Scranton Attractions" and, lo and behold, actual Scranton attractions show up in the search engines (like the Zoo at Nay Aug Park and the Houdini Museum), not just a page full of irrelevant stuff and a few lame links to yet another classified directory listing. Would that be useful?

I'm just asking...