Lawyers and Legal Issues, Proper legal representation for Shadowrunners Options

[PoliteMan]

I'm playing in a SR3 campaign and we just came across a decent windfall, allowing my Shadowrunner to legally immigrate in the UCAS (through some favors) and get a SIN. One of the first things I got was a lawyer.

Technically he's on retainer but for a Shadowrunner with a SIN it seems like a great contact to have. I'm surprised I haven't heard more about it. After all, shadowrunners make a living slipping between the cracks in a heavily balkanized, jumping from one legal zone to another. I can't imagine lawyers haven't taken advantage of it and if a lawyer can keep me out of trouble with the Star why wouldn't I hire one? After most modern-day criminals have excellent legal representation.

So I have a few questions:

1st, how do you handle payment. So far I'm talking with the GM and I thinking of something like a DocWagon contract. You pay an annual fee to have a lawyer on call, with extra payment if it goes to trial and more service if you pay a larger annual fee.

2nd, how does the law work with extra-territoriality. For example, lets say my character make a run on Renraku, get off their territory but get caught by the Star on UCAS ground. Is evidence from Renraku legally admissible in a UCAS court?

3rd, how does the law work in megacorp territory? There have to be laws in order for any territory that operate efficiently (the law being whatever the boss wants works well occasionally but over the long-term creates so much chaos and inefficiency it can't be effective) and UCAS citizens have to have some rights on megacorp property (otherwise no one would go there to BUY things).

From a slightly more metagame perspective, the Shadowrun world is a dystopia where the "have-nots" are screwed and the "haves" are virtually untouchable. What happens when a shadowrunner starts to get enough money/influence/contacts to fall onto the "have" side rather than the "have-nots"?

(For the record, my character has spent time and money building up the kind of contacts and resources to make me appear as a small, successful businessman. He spent $100,000 on a bar which he owns and operates, lives in a nice neighborhood, wears expensive clothes, drives a nice car, knows respectable people, etc.

This post has been edited by PoliteMan: Aug 4 2010, 03:25 PM