[HN Gopher] What do lawyers do?
___________________________________________________________________
What do lawyers do?
Author : memorable
Score : 101 points
Date : 2022-07-02 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
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| voisin wrote:
| What do _barristers_ do. The author seems to skip the entire
| solicitor component of the legal profession.
| fleetwoodsnack wrote:
| It's just a set of observations about legal realism using the
| generic term. You really expected someone to write everything a
| legal professional does?
| voisin wrote:
| My point is that the vast majority of what lawyers do has
| nothing to do with judges. It has to do with drafting
| contracts and interpreting legislation and legal precedent.
| Talking about good lawyers sometimes being able to
| communicate and coming prepared is limited to a small subset
| of barrister work.
|
| [edit for clarity]: I overstated the first sentence. I should
| have said that the vast majority of what lawyers do does not
| involve appearing in court before a judge. The ultimate goal
| of any legal work is certainly to ensure it would satisfy a
| judge should a conflict arise.
| IncRnd wrote:
| If people would never need to go before a judge for any
| type of action, there would be no need for a lawyer. A
| contract, when presumably violated, gets adjudicated by a
| judge. Everything a lawyer does is judge centric.
| Ultimately, the law is meaningless without a judge to
| decide its meaning.
| voisin wrote:
| I never said _never_. The point was that in the grand
| scheme of a legal career, it is exceedingly rare except
| for litigators or barristers, who are a minority of
| lawyers.
| fleetwoodsnack wrote:
| Incorrect, especially the statement that "the vast majority
| of what lawyers do has nothing to do with judges. It has to
| do with drafting contracts and interpreting legislation and
| legal precedent."
|
| I think you're confusing arbitration or litigation as the
| aspects of lawyering which involve judges. In fact, just
| about all actions undertaken by lawyers are with an
| eventual audience of a courtroom and a judge in mind. Yes,
| you review contracts, yes, you interpret legislation: In
| order to achieve some goal, with an eye toward how it might
| be interpreted by a judge or opposing counsel. A lawyer
| that is not proactive about future defense is not
| fulfilling their duty as counsel and that necessarily means
| thinking about and considering judges and the courtroom, to
| one degree or another.
| voisin wrote:
| I think we are writing past each other. The article talks
| about lawyers being good communicators and being
| prepared, the implication being _for court_ to argue in
| front of a judge. This is what I am saying is a tiny,
| infinitesimally small portion of the legal profession as
| a whole.
|
| You changed the topic to be "with an eventual audience of
| a courtroom and a judge in mind", which I don't disagree
| with. This needs to be the consideration, even though the
| vast majority of work never ends up having that audience.
| But this has nothing to do with being a good communicator
| that shows up prepared, as per the article.
| fleetwoodsnack wrote:
| No, there was no change in topic, merely a correction to
| an incorrect absolute statement: "the vast majority of
| what lawyers do has nothing to do with judges."
|
| To say it has nothing to do with judges is the overstep.
| Those who practice know that the end-state of almost all
| legal analysis is "what would the judge say?" and it's
| laughable to think that the prototypical lawyer doesn't
| actively consider how their work will be interpreted by
| legal authorities.
|
| As a layperson, you saw the commentary about
| communication and preparedness and you thought this was
| an article about professional decorum and skillsets. It
| is not: the author saved the punchline for the end, and
| tied his observations about the practice of law,
| jurisdictional incongruities, and legal culture under the
| deft umbrella of legal realism and its affects on the
| above. How does it affect or undermine lawyers'
| interpretation of the law? How do judges weigh the
| various influences that impact their decision making?
| And, all this together, what kind of legal culture is
| created from the variance of these actors and factors?
|
| But hey, let's make this fun. You list an area of law
| that does not interact in any way with judges or
| jurisprudence, and I'll respond appropriately.
| voisin wrote:
| Ok, I've added a clarifying statement. The word "nothing"
| in my post overstated the case based on my reading of the
| post with respect to communication and preparation for
| court.
| mlyle wrote:
| > The author seems to skip the entire solicitor component of
| the legal profession.
|
| I think this is covered. Ultimately, everything comes down to
| court, but he said:
|
| "and can write and say things to maximise the odds of the judge
| doing what you want him to do."
|
| That is-- they know how a court is likely to look at things,
| and know how to construct contracts and advise clients so that
| if a dispute ever emerges they are likely to prevail... or
| rather, that it will be so obvious that they will prevail that
| no one will even bother with litigation.
| johndhi wrote:
| I'm a USA lawyer so not hyper familiar (we have no such
| distinction here) but a barrister is licensed to put on a funny
| hat or wig and actually speak to/interact with a judge. If
| you're only a solicitor (you can be both) I believe you're
| limited to interacting with your client and describing the law
| for them.
|
| I believe this distinction exists on the premise that
| barristers, being more independent from their clients, will be
| more honest and fair when interacting with the judge.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| See the comment on my post -- apparently in India, _any_
| lawyer can go to court. But some just choose not to.
| lamontcg wrote:
| One skill of lawyers is that they understand the context of words
| and their meaning in the judicial system.
|
| I often see untrained people making arguments on reddit about the
| law where they're picking apart words into the meaning they want
| to have them and constructing a legal parallel universe where the
| law means what they hope it means. And they can point at
| dictionary definitions for each word to back up their
| interpretation. And its not that they don't consider something
| like case law, instead, they just don't even understand that it
| exists.
|
| Often times when there's two parallel readings which are
| theoretically possible one of them winds up with implications
| which are clearly absurd and a real-life flesh and bone judge
| will outright reject the attempt to twist the meaning of words
| and phrases. Every now and then a judge somewhere does let this
| kind of argument through and it makes headlines, but usually
| those kinds of cases are going to be overturned on appeal.
|
| A lot of the legal system is that everyone over time has agreed
| that words strung together in a particular way has a particular
| interpretation that applies. If you go in trying to fight that
| interpretation you usually always lose. An attempt to buffer
| overflow the legal system based on dual meanings will usually
| wind up with a judge disagreeing with your nonsense.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| I spent five years and multiple lawyers, until I found a good
| one, fighting my mortgage company, trying to get my day in court.
| In the end, I never did, and mostly lost. That's the power of a
| corporate legal team.
| vivegi wrote:
| IANAL. However, I have worked with lawyers when I worked in a
| large corp and one thing they did consistently well was
| highlighting risk and providing the business unit with
| information on where the landmines lie.
|
| One of the very nuanced discussions I had in the last few years
| was with an IP lawyer when I started my company. His questions
| and solution was very insightful. I wouldn't have arrived at such
| an elegant solution myself.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Same, we paid $10k for a IP lawyer consultation which included
| 1) 2 hour meeting understanding the details 2) A memo with
| their judgement and advice, about 4 pages in total, delivered 3
| weeks later.
|
| During the first meeting, the attorney's assistant was jotting
| down every detail of our conversation. Questions were so
| incredibly detailed that it had us scratching our heads.
|
| It is always impressive to work with lawyers, especially from a
| reputable IP law firm.
| ur-whale wrote:
| >much less scientific than macroeconomics or inflation management
|
| That bad, eh?
| xbar wrote:
| "The empirical study of the practice of the law in India is an
| exercise in the suspension of disbelief."
|
| Which is why it is difficult to craft a remote-intellectual-
| property policy that involves proprietary source code on the
| ground in many such places.
| knighthack wrote:
| As a lawyer, this is one of the _most_ insightful posts on the
| practice of law - in so few words - I 've ever seen. Bravo.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| "I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and
| once when I won one."
|
| -- Voltaire
|
| Where US civil litigation (disputes) are concerned, a good lawyer
| looks to end the dispute before the cost of litigation approaches
| the value of the dispute. Once might argue the feature and bug of
| US tort law is the litigation becomes a third party in the case,
| against whom both sides must fight, hopefully finding a common
| enemy in its cost. If the cost is not enough to settle the
| dispute, you can add the unpredictability of judges and juries
| who on any given day can invert the obvious, wrecking a
| 'winnable' case.
|
| A great lawyer, as opposed to a good one, keeps your fees down as
| you heads to trial against an opponent with seemingly unlimited
| money and appetite for litigation. They accomplish this by
| focusing on the core dispute and ignoring ancillary matters,
| often making their client (wrongly) question how committed they
| are to their case.
|
| In sum, a good lawyer manages their client (always pushing
| internally for settlement), works to keep fees down until
| discovery closes, sows doubt in the other's sides confidence,
| establishes credibility with the Judge, and shows up meticulously
| prepared for trial.
|
| As a thought exercise, imagine how hard all this is to do when
| you dislike your client, your managing partner is on you to
| increase billings, your kids need braces, and you're hoping to
| save a few bucks for retirement and an escape from a profession
| filled with bad lawyers.
| thesausageking wrote:
| A great lawyer can also cause the other side to spend a ton of
| money responding discovery requests and motions. In fact, a
| common strategy is to get the other side's legal bill to be so
| high they eventually give up.
|
| I've seen this kill multiple startups who end up in disputes
| with large tech companies. Even if the startup is 100% in the
| right, the large co can tie them up in a lawsuit for years and
| VCs won't back a startup actively involved in a lawsuit, so the
| startup runs out of money before the case is ever decided.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| VC's do, Paul Graham talks about this, they often face
| vexatious lawsuits, they just have to disclose the suit
| instead of hiding it and let the VC discover it. And many
| VC's are timid, and don't have the vision the industry
| lionizes, because it's an elitist characteristic.
| ABCLAW wrote:
| This isn't a "great lawyer" play . It's the standard play for
| any unscrupulous party engaged against a party with limited
| funds.
|
| Even if a case is pretty open and shut, you can tie it up for
| years in motions for little benefit. This isn't hard at
| all.It's hard to be on the other side and respond to it.
|
| A great lawyer can achieve a settlement against a party like
| this without the need to throw sacks of cash onto a firepit.
| staticman2 wrote:
| "A great lawyer can achieve a settlement against a party
| like this without the need to throw sacks of cash onto a
| firepit."
|
| A lawyer, good or bad, has no control whether the other
| party settles.
| shon wrote:
| This is incorrect in my experience. My company was sued
| by LinkedIn about a year after receiving a $1MM seed
| round. We were low on money with about $250K left and
| raising when the suit hit.
|
| This is a game of leverage.
|
| Lawyers are tools that have to be used effectively to
| apply leverage. Like any tool, good ones make a big
| difference.
|
| At the time LI was worth about $30 Billion, we had $250K.
| We convinced LinkedIn to settle after about 4 months in
| SF court for a nominal amount.
|
| Good/ethical lawyers were critical along with significant
| creativity from our side on how to use them.
|
| We survived, raised a round and the company is still
| kicking.
| staticman2 wrote:
| If Linkedin decided they wanted to put you out of
| business the lawyer would not be able to arrange a
| settlement. A lawyer does not even control whether their
| own client settles.
| shon wrote:
| You think so? Read the case. "LinkedIn v. Robocog". If
| you think they let us go out of the kindness of their
| hearts, I'm interested in hearing more of your thoughts
|
| Also, I didn't say lawyers control settling. I said
| they're tools that can be used to achieve an outcome. And
| the good ones are very helpful. Force multipliers.
|
| Ours were experts in IP law. They knew it well. We used
| them along with other leverage points to achieve our
| settlement.
| ABCLAW wrote:
| I didn't say a good lawyer will achieve the settlement. I
| said they could.
|
| Keeping costs down and only spending enough to acquire
| the absolute key arguments, research and evidence is how
| you get to discuss a settlement with leverage.
|
| A large corp can still pepper you with motions then push
| into trial, but a great lawyer will be limiting how
| quickly you burn through your war chest and fight battles
| judiciously instead of throwing the kitchen sink at every
| motion.
| _rutinerad wrote:
| In the same way that a parent has no control over whether
| their child goes to sleep.
| staticman2 wrote:
| The lawyer can control whether the opposing party settles
| in the same way I can control whether you retract you
| post and concede I was correct.
| _rutinerad wrote:
| Exactly. And you're not using that control very well.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| You can also refuse to settle, just demanding the law be
| carried out until its last consequence, regardless of the
| other party offering everything you want. Sometimes if the
| other party fucks up in a trial and gets a contempt
| hearing, the plaintiff can demand double the amount
| demanded in the original lawsuit as a settlement, but I
| would recommend also demanding they allow the court to make
| a declaration as to their wrongdoing.
| shon wrote:
| Agreed. This is exactly my experience.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| In fact, I did see this with a friend who was in
| arbitration with a giant tech company. Supposedly,
| arbitration is a cost-savings over litigation. I'm sure it
| is, but that's a little like saying chlamydia is better
| than syphilis.
| ape4 wrote:
| Like a DOS attack
| 77pt77 wrote:
| >"I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and
| once when I won one."
|
| Says the man that made his fortune by winning a lawsuit when he
| rigged the lottery.
| kurthr wrote:
| TIL:
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/voltaire-
| enlighten...
| baron816 wrote:
| What TV has taught me lawyers do: they have a new case every week
| that goes to trial that week. The case is always won by evidence
| discovered during the trial, or by testimony of a surprise
| witness, or an impassioned speech during closing arguments. And
| the judgement is rendered right there at the end of the trial.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| One story about India. I didn't go there for the patent case I
| was on, too bad (I'm not Indian, so please pardon and correct my
| ignorance if you are).
|
| They have barristers and solicitors, like the UK. The barrister
| is the one who goes to court for you. What I found interesting
| is, you meet your barrister for about half an hour before he goes
| to court. That's the extent of your contact with him.
|
| His main job is to know the judges, the courts, and the hoops he
| has to jump through, and your solicitor has prepared him for all
| that. You hope.
| elSidCampeador wrote:
| Oh no India did away with the solicitor - barrister
| distinction. There's only one category now - advocates. So
| you'll find people who will use the title ``solicitor'' to
| describe themselves and the work they do, which is akin to what
| UK solicitors do - but every lawyer in India can go officially
| go to court and fight cases. The solicitor types are mostly
| seen in specialised fields like patents and revenue law, and
| these lawyers prefer to just do the legwork and not go to court
| (because as you rightly observed, some lawyers have more
| knowledge about the court and the systems that come with it).
| Generally such `solicitors' keep a couple of lawyers with them
| in a retainer-type arrangement - "whatever cases I get, I'll do
| the paperwork, and you go stand in court, and we split the fee
| a certain way".
|
| Source: High school buddy of mine does this exact thing for
| land revenue cases.
| elSidCampeador wrote:
| also, if an Indian lawyer writes ``Barrister'' on their
| letterhead / business card, it means they've gone through
| training + been called to the Bar in the UK.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Great, thanks. This was indeed a patent case.
| groestl wrote:
| I've witnessed that, in Ireland though, which has a similar
| system. On a very technical case. The barrister failed to set
| up WIFI in the meeting room 60 min before going to the court,
| not even reading the error messages. Which scared me, but then
| he proceeded to explain the most complicated details in front
| of the judge. I was stunned.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Goes to show that theoretical knowledge doesn't nearly always
| correlate well (or at all) with practical skill, and vice
| versa.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| You're assuming the barrister doesn't have theoretical
| knowledge, which I can tell you from experience is not
| true. Good lawyers have an incredible ability to grasp the
| theoretical underpinnings of almost anything very, very
| quickly.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Hm? I meant the exact opposite. The barrister in the GP's
| anecdote had intricate theoretical knowledge of a very
| technical subject matter, despite not being able (or not
| bothering) to debug a simple Wi-Fi problem, which
| surprised the GP.
| cainxinth wrote:
| I have often said that everyone hates lawyers... until they need
| one, and then they want the meanest SOB who ever practiced.
| chmod600 wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer, but this seems far too narrow, and focused on
| trial lawyers.
|
| For instance, what about corporate lawyers writing up merger
| agreements? Or estate lawyers helping to plan for after death? Or
| family lawyers helping people through divorce?
|
| Statutes obviously matter in those cases, in the sense that they
| always matter, but often aren't the main focus.
|
| Even criminal stuff doesn't usually go to trial, and it's not
| because of some amazing insight in reading statutes. It's because
| often, the criminal is obviously guilty (or has no capacity to
| express why they are innocent) and it's just a negotiation over
| the terms of a guilty plea. Part of that is knowing the statute,
| but most is just knowing what other plea deals have been reached
| in similar cases recently.
| torstenvl wrote:
| You and I appear to be understanding the OP in entirely
| different ways.
|
| The value of a lawyer is _not_ in understanding statutes. It is
| in understanding the system, and being able to make predictions
| based on that understanding.
|
| From the article: >> _Sure, lawyers are (sometimes) good
| communicators who are (sometimes) well-prepared, but the real
| value proposition they offer is prediction._
|
| Prediction matters in M&A, it matters in estate plans, it
| matters in divorce litigation. How can you properly prepare a
| merger without anticipating the things that might go wrong? How
| can you negotiate a cost-effective divorce settlement if you
| have no idea how the case will go? How can you plan for, well,
| what happens after your death, if you can't predict how the
| financials will play out?
| YLYvYkHeB2NRNT wrote:
| the jury has absolute power in a courtroom. The judge only
| conducts.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Except the judge's rulings determine what evidence the jury is
| shown. And the judge can overrule the jury with a JNOV - a
| judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > the judge only conducts
|
| Continuing with your metaphor, the symphony conductor "only
| conducts" -- he or she doesn't play the instruments.
|
| The judge sustains or overrules objections. They decide what
| topics may be presented _at all_ via the Motions in Limine [1]
| which are incredibly important. And much more.
|
| [1] https://legaldictionary.net/motion-in-limine/
| jrm4 wrote:
| Technically true, and practically questionable because of the
| psychological way the jury system operates? Which is to say, in
| the face of that absolutely correct power, the system has
| developed unfortunately clever ways to make this not seem like
| the case, see e.g. the undeniable truth, and yet incredibly
| powerful taboo of even mentioning, "jury nullification."
| mattzito wrote:
| In jury trials - for many types of court cases there is no
| jury.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| In the U.S.
| eointierney wrote:
| Eh nope. At least not in common law jurisdictions. I recently
| sat on a jury (murder trial) in a common law jurisdiction
| (Republic of Ireland) and the sitting Judge is the judge of
| Law, and the Jury is the judge of Fact. Apart from that the
| jury does what it's bloody well told.
| johndhi wrote:
| Kinda. The jury is the "fact finder" so only they can decide
| someone is or isn't guilty. However, a judge has the power to
| dismiss a case before sending it to a jury. They can say,
| essentially, this case is easy to decide so we don't need a
| jury. I'll just decide it now.
| darkerside wrote:
| > Because on one hand, the judge believes himself to be bound by
| conventions and norms, the gravitational force of precedents, and
| the judge's internal sense of what ought to be the result. On the
| other hand, these forces battle against various social forces and
| structural realities that are far more real than the canons about
| how you read statutes. Every judgment is the outcome of such a
| conflict.
|
| Fascinating and excellent point, but I think I'd suggest one
| nuance to this interpretation. It works this way everywhere, but
| perhaps in India, the rule of law is in direct conflict with
| social norms, whereas other countries with rule of law have
| managed to align law with social convention to avoid this
| problem.
|
| Imagine a judge interpreting a law that, for example, clearly
| assigns the death penalty to a child.
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Science and Law are the twin pillars of modern civilization -
| from a theoretical point of view. The approaches are
| fundamentally different - for example, a court will generally not
| throw up its hands in despair and say "we can't come to a
| conclusion on this as we don't have the experimental data yet,
| maybe in a few decades" - hence the practice of indefinite
| detention without trial, or indefinite suspension of a civil case
| - is not legally sound (Gitmo ahem). On the other hand, science
| has little to say about moral decisions, it simply reports on
| factual matters. For example, cannibalism is abhored by the legal
| system but as long as you don't consume the brains & nervous
| tissue (prion diseases etc.), and cook it thoroughly, flesh is
| basically flesh, say the scientists. Hence it can be rather
| unwise to let scientists make moral decisions (John von Neumann
| wanting to surprise-nuke the Soviet Union and slaughter a hundred
| million people is a notable example, as is Mengele's interest in
| acquiring human subjects for medical experimentation), and
| equally unwise to let lawyers make decisions about scientific
| issues such as the role of fossil fuels in global warming, or the
| safety and efficacy of vaccines (politicians who were shady
| lawyers in their past lives controlling the budgets of federal
| science-funding agencies comes to mind as a negative example).
|
| The _practice_ of science and law is, in contrast to the
| theoretical ideal, woefully corrupt, biased and untrustworthy in
| our modern world. Finding a lawyer or scientist capable of
| explaining complex topics in their domain without trying to
| manipulate things for their own personal benefit is a fairly
| difficult process, much like sifting dirt to find gems. The fact
| is, science and law requires intelligent individuals, but
| intelligence without any self-consistent moral code easily leads
| to the clever self-serving manipulator and con artist types.
|
| Any business or government entity that needs to hire scientists
| and lawyers to make progress has their work cut out for them,
| that's for sure - assuming they want accurate reports, and aren't
| just trying to get 'reputable experts' on board who will tell the
| public that toxic waste is good for your health, or to find shady
| lawyers who will help hide the profits in offshore tax havens.
| t_mann wrote:
| > _Law is an impressionistic business, much less scientific than
| macroeconomics or inflation management_
|
| Not sure if this is an intended jab at economists or just an
| ironic misconception. Macroeconomics is arguably the academic
| discipline with the worst track record in terms of prediction,
| and inflation is the biggest mystery within there. I remember in
| 2014, then ECB president Mario Draghi was asked whether stimulus
| measures he had just announced wouldn't lead to inflation. His
| response (paraphrased from memory) - "Where is the inflation? We
| know it might come, but we don't see it. We see an immediate
| crisis, so we take are taking these measures to deal with that,
| once we see inflation we'll deal with that."
| sib wrote:
| As one of my advisors in college (very senior, tenured
| macroeconomic professor, who had been on a US President's board
| of economic advisors) said to me,
|
| "If you lined all the economists in the world up end-to-end,
| they still wouldn't reach a conclusion!"
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I don't see how saying "my professional (law) is worse than
| that other profession (macroeconomics)" is a jab.
|
| A jab would be the other way around: "the only thing worse than
| my profession is that other profession".
| civilized wrote:
| If it's not a jab at macro it's the most insane thing I've ever
| read. Macro has a couple successes but, whenever I have contact
| with it, it mostly seems to be a collection of competing,
| politically-flavored voodoo ideologies with no clear way to
| decide which if any is illuminating.
| roenxi wrote:
| > In societies somewhere in between, with a flawed rule of law,
| like India, these predictions are impossibly hard to make.
|
| I think this is overselling the stability of the judicial process
| in the UK, US and other countries with a strong grounding in the
| rule of law. Without getting to political, sometimes judicial
| controversies spring up in the US. The issue is there are
| centuries of norms to fall back on. India doesn't have that yet -
| they have millennia of history in being the centre of
| civilisation but not in how the current legal system should be
| applied under the governance of the sweaty masses of voting
| Indians.
|
| India is going to be more politically dynamic than the US at the
| moment because it is bigger and its ability to direct itself
| democratically is a bit younger. So judges are going to be harder
| to predict regardless of how strong the rule of law is - there is
| effectively less data even assuming a perfect rule of law.
| pixl97 wrote:
| > sometimes judicial controversies spring up in the US.
|
| I think you are massively understating the instability the
| SCOTUS has presented in the past few weeks by overturning
| existing case law.
| skybrian wrote:
| Yes, that has added to the instability, but most court cases
| are unlike the ones that go all the way to the Supreme Court.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| True, few cases go there, but the recent decision means,
| that there is no such thing as "settled law" anymore. The
| Supreme Court may change its oppiin on any thing, thus on
| lower courts it's harder to say "see, there was that
| decision, we follow it" but there is more freedom to derive
| from it.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| The repeal of Roe v Wade was a gut punch for me, but I've
| known it was entirely possible for quite a long time. Plus
| some states have had trigger laws forever so that's hardly
| surprising.
|
| Yes, there will be instability, but it's not the chaotic out-
| of-the-blue kind, unless you're wilfully ignorant of the anti
| abortion movement, or extremely naive to the motivations of
| that bloc.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| As a slight tangent since you seem to be knowledgeable:
| what is the motivation of the anti abortion bloc? I feel
| that godliness and a true care for life yet unborn is not
| it, because the bloc does not exhibit these qualities in
| many other areas...
| m0llusk wrote:
| A different framing can be revealing. For some years the
| state in the US with the lowest number of abortions per
| capita was Massachusetts where abortions are not only
| readily available but also essentially free. The big
| difference is that sex education and contraception are
| pervasively available. In the areas that support a ban on
| abortions sex education and contraception have limited
| availability. Instead people are supposed to abstain
| until they commit to a partner for procreation.
| Abstinence is unrealistic, so this results in youthful
| sexual experimentation starting families. There are
| effectively two different ways of living here with
| abortion being linked to sex education and contraception
| and how ideas about how families should be formed and
| pregnancies planned or not.
| mlyle wrote:
| Eh, I do think it's being repulsed at the idea of killin'
| babies.
|
| Combined with not weighting the value of the choices of
| women or the impact on them or their bodies very high.
|
| Look, uh, abortion is kinda a yucky thing. There's not
| some bright-line moment of change and investiture with
| consciousness and being that happens at the moment of
| birth. It's only when you decide the choices and bodily
| autonomy of the adult woman is more important than the
| potential of the life growing in her that you can support
| abortion.
| dcow wrote:
| I have no religious affiliation beyond accepting others'
| religions (I'm not atheist because ultimately atheism is
| overly restrictive in its worldview) and agree that
| abortion is way more nuanced than what modern feminists
| present. Personally, I've been on both sides of the
| spectrum at different points in my life. I believe I am
| now somewhere in the middle and the reasons are not in
| any way religious. They're based on my lived experience
| more-so than high school ethics. But man the amount that
| people want to reduce this to "fuck religion" is really
| annoying. No one wants to admit it's a yucky issue.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I'm not atheist because ultimately atheism is overly
| restrictive in its worldview
|
| I don't consider myself atheist either. But I do not
| believe in any sort of god. I figure 'atheist' actually
| goes a little too far in making assumptions, so I prefer
| 'ignostic.'
|
| On the bright side, people hear what they want to hear
| when you use that term. A good chunk of my extended
| family, who I otherwise quite like, are evangelical
| christians and not particularly tolerant of atheists
| (they wouldn't spit in your face, but it makes them
| intensely uncomfortable). They don't hear 'ignostic' they
| hear 'agnostic' and that is considerably less offensive
| to them. I do not correct their understanding, because
| the conflict is unnecessary and would not improve
| anyone's life.
|
| > the amount that people want to reduce this to "fuck
| religion"
|
| A lot of blame for this lies with religious folks trying
| to make laws based on their religion. I get a little
| irritated about that myself. Your religion is your
| business, but I have every right to live my life free
| from your religious beliefs. As soon as they started
| making it a core part of their political platform, it
| became more acceptable to adopt the "fuck religion"
| attitude in response.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| and "the gloves are off". If the entire government just
| spent 2 years justifying the coerced vaccination of the
| masses - all thought bodily autonomy thrown out for the
| greater good? Sure the Rightwingers are happy to play
| that game as well.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| IMO comparing vaccination to women's bodily autonomy is a
| bad faith argument. Vaccination is about protecting
| society -- the protection it offers individuals who get
| the vaccine is incidental.
|
| Anti-abortion folks have a stronger argument, IMO, by
| focusing on the liberty of the unborn child. Both sides
| refuse to give up ground, however, for political reasons.
| The logical conclusion is that there is a point somewhere
| on the scale between 0 and 9 months where a fetus gains
| enough liberty to qualify for rights of its own that can
| be balanced against the rights of the mother. I hope some
| day we can come together to define that point and codify
| it.
| mlyle wrote:
| > to qualify for rights of its own that can be balanced
| against the rights of the mother.
|
| I'm not sure how much I agree. If you were grafted to my
| arm and that was keeping you alive... I would think it
| would be within my rights to remove you.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Arguments don't matter, in the end, really
| mlyle wrote:
| In the long run, "in the end", arguments are all that
| matters.
|
| Sure, not many mature people are convinced. But people
| growing up and developing their positions are influenced.
| And even those of us who are not fully convinced tend to
| build some nuance into our positions to cope with the
| stronger arguments.
| Veelox wrote:
| > what is the motivation of the anti abortion bloc?
|
| I'm going to take this question seriously. The pro-life
| bloc is sincere when they say they think killing a fetus
| after conception is murder. They also on average have
| right leaning policy. Since you didn't list specifically
| what you meant by "exhibit these quantities" so this is
| guessing. I see a lot of arguments from left leaning
| folks that round to "if pro-life people were REALLY pro-
| life they would agree with all my policies (health care,
| climate change, gun control, ect)" and then use this
| argument to say pro-life people are liars. Nope, they
| just disagree about when killing the pre-born humans
| counts as murder.
| pm90 wrote:
| If you read the opinions they're not very convincing.
| They're making up principles to adhere to which did not
| exist before, and doing this for things that have broad
| support in the US population.
|
| So it is quite chaotic out of the blue kind. Essentially
| the Judges are ruling by decree and will strike down _any_
| law that's not explicitly enumerated in the constitution
| (and even there they will certainly weaken the law as we
| saw with Roe v Wade).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| A lot of people think it's possible to read the
| constitution literally and divine what the words mean. To
| them, all of this makes perfect sense, because they can't
| see how the previous rulings ever fit what the
| constitution prescribes.
|
| I sympathize, but clearly there is _far more_ to our laws
| than just the words on that document. It 's just the set
| of principles providing some foundation. Hell, we started
| with " _congress_ shall make no law... " and extrapolated
| that all the way to pretty much any institution funded by
| taxes. Clearly a literal reading has limits.
| rland wrote:
| In light of recent events, the only conclusion I can
| arrive at is that originalism as a legal theory was a
| decades-long project created with the express purpose of
| overturning the Warren-era jurisprudence. Roe is the
| first salvo, but there are many more regressions coming.
|
| It was not created as a good-faith "alternate
| interpretation." It is not a cohesive or logical theory.
| It is, instead, a weapon, whose targets should be clear
| to everyone now. The way the weapon works is that you
| assume that it is being made in good faith and engage
| with it on its own terms. And then, again and again, get
| owned. Because the other guy is just making stuff up, and
| you, the sucker, are actually arguing.
|
| I'm not _quite_ in conspiracy territory yet, but I really
| would like to know what they are saying out loud behind
| closed doors at the Federalist Society HQ.
| turdit wrote:
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| the sheer number of mindnumbing number of open cases in indian
| judiciary is the problem.
|
| Here are a couple of livestreams of high courts in india
| https://www.youtube.com/c/BlackGownlaw
| https://www.youtube.com/c/GujaratHighCourtLive/videos
|
| you can easily find courts right now hearing cases from 20-30
| years ago meaning all that time, the case has been delayed for
| some reason or the other.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-1qOtI9zv8
|
| here is a hearing for a person who has been incarcerated for 4
| years and no charges have been filed against him. the court
| granted him bail but it only took the court 4 years to do so.
|
| edit: that said, it is simply not a question of increasing the
| number of courts because apparently it costs milions and
| millions to set up a single courtroom.
|
| things have definitely improved in the last decades as
| arbitration is given preference, there is things like "lok
| adalats" where small cases are heard in a quick succession so
| that case loads are reduced.
| jwsteigerwalt wrote:
| From a consultative standpoint, a good lawyer is can be a
| reflection of being a good client. The same applies to business
| departments working with corporate counsel. Keeping questions and
| asks objective leads to objective response.
| memcg wrote:
| I recently looked up a lawyer that I used a decade ago. Seems he
| was convicted of a federal crime and disbarred. He is now a
| judge.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Great analysis. Even though we see the warts all of the time, I'm
| so incredibly impressed by "law," and I didn't get to this point
| until I was well out of law school.
|
| Why I'm impressed is how well the law holds itself together in
| the face of the _massive weight_ of influences that have every
| reason in the world to try to corrupt it. It 's just all too easy
| to speculate (or read historically) how easy it is to corrupt
| this kind of power (religion, violence, fear etc) and how this
| general notion of "No, we're going to dress up like grownups and
| do our damndest to figure this out with reasoning" is so great.
| rland wrote:
| The counter-point would be the criminal legal system, which has
| spectacularly failed to resist the influence of injustice, and
| not just historically! I suppose if you have only spent time in
| civil proceedings (depending on the type of proceeding...) you
| could hold the view that it is mostly free of corruption. On
| the federal judiciary, I think we really ought to dispense of
| the idea that political influence is somehow separate from
| jurisprudence. Recent events ought to have made that clear.
|
| I'm a little bothered by how _sacred_ the courts are in public
| imagination. I think it 's actually harmful to consider them
| so. We deny that the courts are a fallible institution, which
| at times enables and empowers bad actors, at our peril.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Great point. The difficult thing, on this forum, is it is
| weighted towards younger and very accomplished computer
| scientists. Sometimes the impulse, when seeing complexity
| that's hard to understand (medicine, regulation, law), is to be
| frustrated and dismiss it. Law is amazing and much older than
| programming, and one of the underrated human inventions. The
| fact we aren't constantly killing each other over small
| disputes is amazing when you really consider it.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Many small disputes start as somebody threatening somebody
| else over like 1C/. Yeah like 1C/, I've gone through that,
| I've taken somebody to court after escalating the fuck out of
| a 1C/ cost. Small claims, went alone, the counterparty didn't
| go to negotiations, I spoke my piece, showed my evidence,
| corrected their translator because I spoke both languages
| perfectly, didn't interrupt the judge, suppressed laughter
| which the transcriber saw and smiled, but that's not
| harmful...and got everything I asked for, because I asked for
| exactly what I deserved. Compound interest too, 10% a year,
| so I can sell that debt to collections or hound that old
| landlady down myself, which would be a learning experience.
| Context, she cheated me out of the deposit and now owes me
| triple plus court costs plus another $45 item she cheated me
| out of, so like...payback is a bitch.
|
| Biggest problem with small claims court, because there is a
| problem with it...don't sell popcorn. That is a problem,
| apart from that problem it's great but that is a problem and
| that means small claims has a problem...they should sell
| popcorn. And also the amounts are too small, small claims
| should go up to $50000, courts are the last to adjust for
| inflation, so it sucks.
|
| And the judges get cheated out of wages can't even afford to
| protect themselves, the jury gets the minimum wage like what
| the fuck, that's disgusting, they should always get quadruple
| the minimum wage because they're participating in civil
| matters which is a legitimate priviledge of a law-abiding
| citizen.
|
| But in court? You can win.
| rgifford wrote:
| > Law is amazing and much older than programming...
|
| And boy does it show. Recent events have me examining The
| Supreme Court and American law from a programmers
| perspective. And let me tell you, there are warts:
|
| The Supreme Court is comprised of lifelong appointees, mostly
| in the dwindling twilight of their cognitive ability. This
| made sense when we didn't understand cognitive decline. Now
| with the rapid pace of technological progress, it's a joke.
| To be plain, I don't know of any ICs their age able to keep
| up. They move up or age out.
|
| The whole legal rationalist ideal that you can start from the
| base principles of the constitution and reason up
| indefinitely is ridiculous. We programmers have all sorts of
| tooling to navigate code bases larger than we can readily
| keep in our heads. That tooling regularly fails us. The best
| programmers I've worked with regularly hit compiler errors.
| This all happens in the sterile environment of code. Why
| should I believe that judges, who can't even agree on whether
| to interpret the constitution in a modern lens or hold to its
| writers original intentions, are less susceptible to
| irrationality or bias or plain incompetence with far less
| tooling? A lot of modern psychology suggests they can't.
|
| For all you programmers out there, read a handful of legal
| documents. As far as complex logical reasoning goes, it comes
| off like a kid building a treehouse compared to code for even
| simple web apps. The legal profession needs to recognize its
| limitations and catch up with the times. Here are some ideas:
|
| - Rigorous, regular cognitive testing after for all licensed
| legal professionals older than 45. You have to pass a test to
| drive in old age, but you can sentence someone to life in
| prison no problem.
|
| - Term limits for everyone, everywhere.
|
| - In certain cases, law should embrace statistics. Certain
| cases aren't suited for proposition-like rule based
| reasoning. Law needs a larger tool chest that can make
| argument based not on precedent, but on what exists right now
| in American society.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| You misunderstand. Law is about _persuasion_ - which is to
| say it 's a combination of marketing, power plays,
| intimidation, theatrical performance, bureaucratic
| procedure, and politics.
|
| The logical (verbal) reasoning element is only relevant in
| those situations where it can be used as a tool of
| persuasion. It's not the only tool, and it isn't even the
| most powerful one.
|
| It is absolutely _nothing_ like coding in any sense at all.
|
| For example - term limits seem like an obvious solution.
| But how would they be administered? For whose benefit? Who
| chooses replacements? How often, and in what circumstances?
| How would recalls and impeachments work?
|
| Legislation would have to cover all of those details and
| more. And the people writing the legislation would be
| lawyers.
|
| Because you can't just wave a hand and say "term limits,
| yeh?" and expect that to solve anything.
| jrm4 wrote:
| 100%. Relatedly, this is why I'm ultra-skeptical of just
| about everything AI is hyped up to be these days.
| Computers are _nowhere near_ us in terms of being able to
| synthesize all this stuff and actually doing helpful
| things for humans in this space.
| rgifford wrote:
| > Law is about persuasion...
|
| Yep, we have an adversarial, common law system. So we
| measure our lawyers on their ability to manipulate
| regardless of the moral or social outcome. I don't think
| this is a facet of law in general, so much as a legal
| system that hasn't grown past ~1790.
| d110af5ccf wrote:
| > mostly in the dwindling twilight of their cognitive
| ability
|
| Have you actually read SCOTUS trial transcripts? Because
| they come across as incredibly sharp people to me even when
| I don't agree with their views.
|
| > A lot of modern psychology suggests they can't.
|
| Actually there are psychology studies examining
| professionals who have to deal with bias (scientists,
| judges, etc) that indicate that the competent ones tend to
| slightly over rather than under compensate.
|
| > Law needs a larger tool chest that can make argument
| based not on precedent, but on what exists right now in
| American society.
|
| How is that different than legislating from the bench?
| Isn't updating laws a job best reserved for the
| legislature?
| rgifford wrote:
| > Have you actually read SCOTUS trial transcripts?
| Because they come across as incredibly sharp people to me
| even when I don't agree with their views.
|
| Yes. Get nine professionals together to write a subject
| matter document over a year. I don't care who they are,
| that document will appear at least superficially put
| together. I have lots of thoughts/criticism. This isn't
| the conversation for that, so here's just one of those
| criticisms:
|
| > Attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a
| broader right to autonomy and to define one's "concept of
| existence" prove too much. Casey, 505 U. S., at 851.
| Those criteria, at a high level of generality, could
| license fundamental rights to illicit drug use,
| prostitution, and the like.
|
| Oh no, drug use and prostitution could be licensed too?
| Obviously those are terrible and morally repugnant.
| Backtracking is clearly necessary. What? Why? This isn't
| the 1970s and the nation isn't 100% on board with Reagan
| and the war on drugs anymore. A majority of Americans
| support decriminalizing sex work for example. This point
| IS contentious, but it's treated as though it's self
| justifying. It so obviously comes from minds trapped in a
| bygone era where traditionalist values went unquestioned,
| where appeals to them were enough.
|
| > Actually there are psychology studies examining
| professionals who have to deal with bias (scientists,
| judges, etc) that indicate that the competent ones tend
| to slightly over rather than under compensate.
|
| I'd love to see these studies. I don't know what
| over/under compensate means in this context or how that
| says anything about cognitive decline.
|
| > How is that different than legislating from the bench?
| Isn't updating laws a job best reserved for the
| legislature?
|
| The pace of technological progress is increasing. It has
| surpassed our legislative ability even under the best of
| circumstances. We aren't in the best of circumstances.
| Our legislature hasn't effectively represented popular
| interests for years now [1].
|
| 1. https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/
| ddingus wrote:
| While I agree with the legislature is not representing
| the people well at all, I disagree on pace of tech change
| being the reason.
|
| The reason is money. Specifically, bribes are legal here,
| even encouraged.
|
| The product of that is a government representing money,
| not the people, and our law says we should be self
| governed, not lorded over as we have seen happen for
| quite a while now.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| I understand what you are saying about declining cognitive
| abilities, and don't necessarily disagree. However the
| lifetime appointment of US Supreme Court justices is a
| purposeful designed feature, not a bug. It is to foster an
| independent justice branch that is not beholden to the
| president that appointed them, because the justice can
| simply "outlast" the presidents term
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _that is not beholden to the president that appointed
| them, because the justice can simply "outlast" the
| presidents term_
|
| And to ensure they aren't beholden to the guy promising
| them their next job. Compromise could be you become a
| nonvoting member of the Court after a certain age. You
| can ask questions at trial, deliberate with other
| members, _et cetera_. But you don't sign opinions or
| dissents.
| rgifford wrote:
| > However the lifetime appointment of US Supreme Court
| justices is a purposeful designed feature...
|
| It was a feature in a time when white men lived, on
| average, to the ripe old age of 38.
|
| I'm tired of treating anything the founding fathers came
| up with as sacred. Different time, completely different
| context. Economics, psychology, and almost all of STEM
| didn't even exist then. They did not know what they were
| doing. They got lucky in almost every regard.
|
| Keep in mind in all of human history only about 1/4 of
| violent revolutions are successful, many that "succeeded"
| left all parties involved much worse off. America,
| especially in its inception, was an incredible anomaly
| that far too many paint as something more in the name of
| American exceptionalism.
|
| EDIT: Look, our legislature is a complete and abject
| failure. It's completely gridlocked, arguably by the
| design of private interests. If it were working to
| reflect popular interest, I imagine American law and
| government would look very different. I don't think any
| of what I'm suggesting here would be even slightly
| controversial to be quite honest.
| honkdaddy wrote:
| Very little of what the founding fathers wrote is
| considered sacred, I've never really heard people make
| the case that it should be. What is considered sacred by
| some Americans is the constitution, but I think you'll
| find yourself in a small minority if you think it should
| be thrown away. It doesn't really matter if you're tired
| of hearing about it, it's a very common American
| perception that the rules set out in the constitution
| should still remain the cornerstone of legal precedent in
| their country. It's nice to say that those old white men
| were hacks who got lucky and we should give it a rest
| with the constitution thing, but most people here don't
| really feel that way.
| rgifford wrote:
| A majority of Americans think we should interpret the
| constitution in a modern light [1]. The young, secular,
| internet-age population are going to challenge the
| constitution further as the generation of Reagan and
| American exceptionalism go to the nursing home. I'm sure
| of it. It's a shame we have to suffer the death rattle of
| traditionalists in the meantime.
|
| 1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
| tank/2018/05/11/growing-sha...
| d110af5ccf wrote:
| > a time when white men lived, on average, to the ripe
| old age of 38
|
| That is a meaningless figure. Those that survived to
| adulthood had similar lifespans to us.
|
| > I'm tired of treating anything the founding fathers
| came up with as sacred.
|
| This is a common refrain from people who want to change
| things as they see fit against the wishes of those who
| disagree with them. If there were broad consensus to
| change the law as written then presumably the legislature
| would vote to do so. You are attacking the credibility of
| the institution rather than admit that something like
| half of the country doesn't share your views.
| rgifford wrote:
| > If there were broad consensus to change the law as
| written then presumably the legislature would vote to do
| so.
|
| The legislature does not represent popular interests any
| more and hasn't for years [1]. This is widely studied and
| accepted. You can see it plainly even in its demographic
| and socioeconomic composition.
|
| We don't have enough of a shared reality here to come to
| agreement and should agree to disagree.
|
| 1. https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/
| akomtu wrote:
| That's a cute study you've linked: "opinions of average
| citizens don't matter, it's the money and power that make
| the law." This must be the greatest revelation since
| Ancient Greece.
| knighthack wrote:
| > _Different time, completely different context.
| Economics, psychology, and almost all of STEM didn 't
| even exist then. They did not know what they were doing.
| They got lucky in almost every regard._
|
| I disagree. Technology and knowledge changes. Base human
| nature doesn't.
|
| It's not about "treating anything the founding fathers
| came up with as sacred". Nor about the average age and
| baseline knowledge then and now.
|
| It's that humans are subject to influence. And members of
| the judiciary - decision makers of the most obvious kind
| - are _especially_ likely to be influenced if their
| security can be affected by the passage of time.
|
| Sure, the lifetime appointment does not 'guarantee'
| anything in terms of judicial independence or judicial
| freedom. But it does enable a judicial member to make
| decisions, if he/she wants to, in a manner free from the
| consideration that their politically-'incorrect' choices
| may cause them to retire, or be retired, early. And that
| is a security _feature_ that judges must be afforded,
| however old they may be, in order to let them freely make
| decisions that they think are the best possible, whether
| they subscribe to originalist views or are judicial
| activists.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I am always impressed by lawyers. Even bad ones. They all seem
| to have this unwavering intellectualism that governs how they
| speak, write, and engage in their profession.
|
| For instance, I find Supreme Court opinions interesting to read
| because they have a tremendous gravitas and intellectual
| discourse. Compare this with reading memos of the executive
| branch for passing a bill or listening to politicians in
| congress.
|
| Law and the profession of Lawyers is fantastically _fine_. I
| don 't see this in any other profession, even Doctors.
| giantg2 wrote:
| My experience is that the system is rife with incompetence and
| convenient inconsistencies.
| [deleted]
| mdanger007 wrote:
| Justice is great for those who can afford it!
| humanistbot wrote:
| You didn't have to read (new) legal realism or critical legal
| studies in law school?
| johndhi wrote:
| In my experience as a lawyer at tech companies:
|
| -bad lawyers creative an antagonist relationship with their
| internal colleagues in sales and contribute to distrust
|
| -good lawyers spend a lot of time learning stuff about their
| clients (engineering, corp dev, sales, whoever) that seems
| "tangential" to the fundamental legal issues at first blush
|
| -bad lawyers think they know the answer to legal questions facing
| the company
|
| -good lawyers believe no one knows the answers but by combining
| their knowledge with that of their clients they can arrive at
| optimal answers
| johndhi wrote:
| I'm a lawyer. This makes some good points not everyone realizes
| but I'll add some caveats:
|
| This is way more relevant in common law countries (US and UK)
| since in other countries judicial decisions are a lot less
| important.
|
| Also, it's probably a little litigation focused. For transactions
| lawyers, for example, their value is in negotiating a better
| deal.
| iasay wrote:
| Turn problems into money and money into problems.
| rambambram wrote:
| > Good lawyers can predict what the judge will do, and can write
| and say things to maximise the odds of the judge doing what you
| want him to do.
|
| And before you go to court, good lawyers and legal advisers look
| at a case also from the angle of what a judge would ultimately
| consider. So even if there's no judge around and nobody plans to
| have a judge around to solve the problem at hand, there's always
| the 'shadow of the law'.
|
| > Law is an impressionistic business, much less scientific than
| macroeconomics or inflation management, more akin to craft than
| science.
|
| When I went to law school, one of the professors in the first
| year told us "law is a prescriptive science, not a descriptive
| science". That was the moment I could not take it seriously
| anymore, or the moment from when on I had to take it more
| seriously. Whatever 'serious' might mean in this case. I still
| don't have a final answer for myself.
| quacked wrote:
| I believe Law is one of the fundamental industries of
| civilization, along with Textiles, War, Food, Medicine, and
| Shelter. Without a way for disputes to be settled in a
| (theoretically) predictable and well-documented manner, the other
| "fundamental industries" will suffer output and availability
| problems.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| You forgot entertainment and accounting.
| notriddle wrote:
| Also forgot midwifing, babysitting, and education. No
| professional lives forever, so a civilization must constantly
| grow and train replacements.
| quacked wrote:
| Midwifing is medicine, babysitting is not an industry, and
| formal education was invented in the 1800s. People have
| been capable of educating each other and watching children
| without full-time school for thousands of years, it's only
| recently that westerners completely forgot how to do it.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Don't forget the aqueducts! And sanitation!
| quacked wrote:
| Shelter, food, and medicine. Worst case you could replace
| "shelter" with "construction"
| Hendrikto wrote:
| > [...] Law is one of the fundamental industries of
| civilization, along with Textiles, War, Food, Medicine, and
| Shelter.
|
| I think Entertainment is missing from that list.
| quacked wrote:
| Entertainment doesn't need to be an industry, that will
| happen naturally among peers unless it's artificially
| restricted.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| Judges should not be lawyers by trade; It creates an insidious
| incentive structure to make "law" into something far different
| from what we actually want.
| mypastself wrote:
| Interesting viewpoint. Never thought of lawyering as essentially
| professionals contending with their own predictions of a judge's
| behavior, but it makes sense.
|
| > Law is an impressionistic business, much less scientific than
| macroeconomics or inflation management
|
| It must be pretty unscientific if it's worse than those.
| groffee wrote:
| Keep me out of jail hopefully.
| briantakita wrote:
| Or putting you in jail...unless you can make it worthwhile for
| a skillful & determined one to represent you.
| markrobin wrote:
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| -- having been through a fair share of business lawyers over the
| years - i've finally figured out what I like about the guy I
| settled on - risk _assumption_ & mitigation - my lawyer explains
| the risks of different approaches - as well as the potential
| costs - many lawyers I've used in the past are expensive & cause
| a lot of issues - I'm not a lawyer - I understand business law at
| a basic level - if my lawyer says: do it this way - I'm inclined
| to follow that advice - sometimes that advise is exce$$ive - much
| prefer a lawyer who says: these are the ways it could be done - a
| sensible & seasoned lawyer is one of more powerful tools a
| startup can have - interview lawyers till you find the one --
| berberous wrote:
| Do you have some sort of personal dislike for the period?
| atwood22 wrote:
| His lawyer advised him not to end sentences.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I thought lawyers usually focus on not starting them.
| claydolatry wrote:
| A lawyer specializing in risk assumption would have advised
| not to assume gender
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Especially when their username is "pigtailgirl" :P
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Excuse me - I'm still talking...
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| -- our quake/ut clan used a double dash at the start & end of
| msg's on forums & irc back in the day - don't recall why our
| clan leader came up with it - we already had a -[nick|tag]- -
| either way it stuck with me - the middle dashes mostly
| because I think they are marginally easier to read - when I
| write my notes with a dash to separate the thoughts - i've
| found it's a bit quicker to skim through - happy to change if
| you find it annoying --
| Jugurtha wrote:
| When I started handling a business, I had stumbled upon several
| problems dealing with our accounting firm (big 4). I caught
| several mistakes the people they assigned to our account made
| (such as including VAT in an six figure invoice that was
| exempted in a particular case. It almost seems they were
| working for the revenue service). Worse, once they made a
| mistake registering a new employee for social security, then
| sent us a recourse document to sign that stated that _we_ made
| that mistake. It was classless and unprofessional as they
| either should have owned that in the document or used the
| passive voice. Our questions went unanswered. We ended up
| firing them.
|
| When we were looking for a new accountant (another big 4), I
| made a document with questions that served to interview the
| lawyer, and all the issues served to draw up the contract and
| service agreement.
|
| I used to see one to two emails per day from the first
| accounting firm. Our accounting is basic. One enterprise
| client. One invoice per month. Few employees. Social security
| cheque every quarter. Taxes every month. Salary bank transfer
| every month. Nothing fancy, but somehow the first firm managed
| to screw this up so badly it ended becoming a massive cognitive
| load.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| have you thought about trying local small accounting
| firms/law firms for your taxes as opposed to monolith "big
| 4?"
|
| big 4 people will have the best paid execs and partners but
| the leg work is made to be done by interns and stuff. On the
| other hand, in a small firm, its all hands on deck to
| finish/work on a case.
|
| i am a lawyer/accountant in india handling
| business/litigation of businesses. as a representative of the
| smaller boutique firms, i would suggest you look up your
| local firms first as they are more inclined to give more
| attention and care to your work
| Jugurtha wrote:
| > _have you thought about trying local small accounting
| firms /law firms for your taxes as opposed to monolith "big
| 4?"_
|
| Yes, and we did. On several instances, we had silly
| problems like the accountant going to vacation right before
| tax deadline, other frustrations like communication
| problems.
|
| > _big 4 people will have the best paid execs and partners
| but the leg work is made to be done by interns and stuff.
| On the other hand, in a small firm, its all hands on deck
| to finish /work on a case._
|
| That was one clause in the agreement as I said. Our account
| was to be handled by seasoned people and we had put in the
| contract that they had to answer our questions. Granted,
| they don't always know what to do, but you're not left
| hanging, but regulations here are another story.
|
| >* smaller boutique firms, i would suggest you look up your
| local firms first as they are more inclined to give more
| attention and care to your work*
|
| Done that. It's good advice. Maybe for another company but
| we needed our accounting to be tight given the direction we
| wanted to go, and the cost of doing so was almost the same
| as going with a smaller accounting practice.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| >Yes, and we did. On several instances, we had silly
| problems like the accountant going to vacation right
| before tax deadline, other frustrations like
| communication problems.
|
| are you saying a small firm's staff took a vacation
| during tax season? thats very strange. i have had
| partners in our firm delay their medical procedures til
| the end of tax season specifically because small offices
| run a tight ship and loss of a single person means the
| rest of the team has to stay up late. our office
| regularly does 82 hour shifts during tax season but i am
| not even bragging.
|
| >Yes, and we did. On several instances, we had silly
| problems like the accountant going to vacation right
| before tax deadline, other frustrations like
| communication problems.
|
| are you talking about an indian small accounting firm
| charging as much as a big 4? nice. i would love to be
| them.
|
| the fees charged by small 1-2-5 partner firms are a
| magnitude lower than big 4 prices. Indirect tax audit
| fees is like 30-40K inr in a good small firm while big
| 4/big firms do not take on cases with fees less than
| 100-200K inr. But those are my anecdata between our fees
| and the fees i hear is being charged by friends on those
| places.
|
| i would love to hear the anonymized specifics of the
| case, if you are so inclined to share with a total
| stranger.
|
| anyways, good luck finding a good partner/firm
| Jugurtha wrote:
| > _are you saying a small firm 's staff took a vacation
| during tax season? thats very strange._
|
| The company is an LLC equivalent in Algeria. There's no
| tax season. Tax forms must be submitted and paid before
| the 20th of every month. Social security before the 30th
| of every month, or quarterly if the company has fewer
| than nine employees.
|
| Employees don't do their own taxes; instead, the company
| withholds the taxes/social security and pays on their
| behalf (retenue a la source).
|
| And yes, the accountant was unreachable before doing our
| taxes.
|
| > _are you talking about an indian small accounting firm
| charging as much as a big 4? nice. i would love to be
| them._
|
| I'm not sure how I miscommunicated that it was in India.
| It's not, to be clear.
|
| It's not the small firms charging as high as a big 4,
| rather the big 4 charging something that's a multiple of
| smaller firms, but not an order of magnitude. The fees
| are subject to negotiatons before signing the contract.
|
| The way big 4s are structured allows that. They're a
| rather independent firms in a network sharing a name.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| you just explained indian indirect taxes. "tax season" in
| india is a yearly affair so that is what i wrote.
|
| the indirect taxes, well, there are 2 due dates in a
| month. 10th and 20th. salary taxes are called "tds" or
| "tax deduction at source". same, monthly and a quarterly
| return.
|
| we do have those "network firms" , actually the "big 4"
| in india is a network of firms who have taken up a name,
| there isnt any actual EY office, just a name of a
| network.
|
| >And yes, the accountant was unreachable before doing our
| taxes.
|
| irresponsible of them. we literally manage our outside-
| office life based on the 10th and 20th of the month so,
| 1-10 and 17-20 are no normal holiday days. employees are
| free to take a leave on 11th-15th or 21-28th of every
| month but the rest of the days, unless there is a serious
| emergency, leaves are not entertained much.
|
| a small office usually does not have a tonne of clients
| (otherwise they would be big) so every client is
| important. Now why would this particular accountant would
| go on a vacation on "important dates", i dont know. i can
| safely say i have never done that and neither have my
| peers
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