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What a cluster.. see kay. IANAL, and find the above description of what makes a good lawyer as repulsive as it is accurate. It's a self-fulfilling system, too,

What a cluster.. see kay. IANAL, and find the above description of what makes a good lawyer as repulsive as it is accurate. It's a self-fulfilling system, too, thanks to the learning of case law. Law propagates more law. This is why we have legalese. This is why we can't have nice things!

dctoedt 11y ago
>>> What a cluster.. see kay. ... Law propagates more law. Law is a kind of emergent system. As Justice Holmes famously said, "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience." [1] >>> That is why we have legalese. The term legalese covers a lot of ground. We need to distinguish between the different genera (TIL that's the plural of genus). Some legalese is simply a compact system of shorthand. Such systems evolve in every field; for example, the shorthand terms edge case and corner case in software. Busy professionals expect their colleagues to know the shorthand. Some legalese, especially the archaic kind, can be used in an attempt to mystify and awe nonlawyers, especially less-educated ones. Good lawyers try to avoid doing that. (Footnote: In bar-association circles there's been a persistent move toward plain language; try a Google search for "plain language vs. legalese.") >>> This is why we can't have nice things! Law evolved as an alternative to the rule of the strongest. On the whole, law is sustainable and scalable, more or less. We imperfect humans actually follow it, mostly, notwithstanding our tendency to pursue our individual desires. If you think you know of a better system, please feel free to run for office and try to persuade the rest of us to implement it. And remember the brute fact that we humans are loss-averse [2]; that's one big reason why persuading people to go along with political reform can be so difficult. (You could always try the Daesh approach [3], but that's likely to get you locked up or killed, and it'd be like trying to rewrite your code from scratch [4] --- you'd lose so much codified knowledge of workable ways of handling edge cases and corner cases.) [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Jr https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Jr. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion [3] http://www.vox.com/2015/11/14/9734894/daesh-isis-isil http://www.vox.com/2015/11/14/9734894/daesh-isis-isil [4] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
tptacek 11y ago
That's a weird thing to be alarmed by, because that description of what makes a good lawyer (maybe "effective lawyer" is the better term) rings extremely true. In every formal legal dispute I've been in, the lawyers on both sides seemed essentially to function like professional negotiators. The fine points of the law itself had little to do with the actual work being done in resolving the dispute.

dctoedt 11y ago

>>> What a cluster.. see kay. ... Law propagates more law. Law is a kind of emergent system. As Justice Holmes famously said, "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience." [1] >>> That is why we have legalese. The term legalese covers a lot of ground. We need to distinguish between the different genera (TIL that's the plural of genus). Some legalese is simply a compact system of shorthand. Such systems evolve in every field; for example, the shorthand terms edge case and corner case in software. Busy professionals expect their colleagues to know the shorthand. Some legalese, especially the archaic kind, can be used in an attempt to mystify and awe nonlawyers, especially less-educated ones. Good lawyers try to avoid doing that. (Footnote: In bar-association circles there's been a persistent move toward plain language; try a Google search for "plain language vs. legalese.") >>> This is why we can't have nice things! Law evolved as an alternative to the rule of the strongest. On the whole, law is sustainable and scalable, more or less. We imperfect humans actually follow it, mostly, notwithstanding our tendency to pursue our individual desires. If you think you know of a better system, please feel free to run for office and try to persuade the rest of us to implement it. And remember the brute fact that we humans are loss-averse [2]; that's one big reason why persuading people to go along with political reform can be so difficult. (You could always try the Daesh approach [3], but that's likely to get you locked up or killed, and it'd be like trying to rewrite your code from scratch [4] --- you'd lose so much codified knowledge of workable ways of handling edge cases and corner cases.) [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Jr https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Jr. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion [3] http://www.vox.com/2015/11/14/9734894/daesh-isis-isil http://www.vox.com/2015/11/14/9734894/daesh-isis-isil [4] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

tptacek 11y ago

That's a weird thing to be alarmed by, because that description of what makes a good lawyer (maybe "effective lawyer" is the better term) rings extremely true. In every formal legal dispute I've been in, the lawyers on both sides seemed essentially to function like professional negotiators. The fine points of the law itself had little to do with the actual work being done in resolving the dispute.