Thanks in good part to the lawyer who helped Rachel Canning sue her parents, her family drama became national news — and she gained infamy as an icon of the spoiled brat.
Now the lawyer who took that case to court, Tanya Helfand, has written an op-ed about the case for The Star-Ledger. What makes this unusual is that she is discussing her client in public after the client dropped the litigation and returned home to hash out her issues with her parents.
Canning’s return home strikes us as a healthy development, because this case never should have been brought. It further strikes us that by going home and dropping her lawsuit, Canning was choosing to take the dispute out of both the courtroom and the public eye.
In that light, we wonder whose interests were being served by Helfand’s decision to go ahead with a column after Canning had gone home: hers, or her client’s? The Post called, e-mailed and faxed Helfand’s office to ask if she had received written consent from her client before her column was published. She promised to get back to us, but never did.
Whatever Canning’s behavior, we expect more from grown adults than from a high-school senior. Unfortunately, this young woman has been badly served by the adults around her — including the two lawyers at the heart of this ill-advised litigation, John Inglesino and Tanya Helfand.
Rachel Canning is now back home with her family members. To the lawyers we say: Let them sort it out themselves, in peace.