6 ms·

| We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States. If you have money, you have the power... Your POV that money distorts and helps dete

| We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States. If you have money, you have the power... Your POV that money distorts and helps determine winners, while seeming so prima facie obvious, does not come close to getting to the real problem. I know this because I have money and I've spent well over a million dollars on attorneys in the last decade and I got very little in the way of ... not justice, very little in the way of consideration of the core legal questions in each case; in fact, I don't even know how the interesting core legal questions would have been resolved, the courts completely dodged them; and along the way, I saw a vast amount of phony posturing, amplification of minor details, and outright lying and manipulation of the legal system, mostly by attorneys; and the judges eat it up, because they too are attorneys. (and BTW, when a judge sees an unsophisticated indigent defendant, they actually do bend over backward to help them, say a confused tenant who does not pay rent is most usually given many many more chances.) To put it into the context of this guy's patent rant: my point would be, there is a question as to whether this patent is valid or not, and whether it covers this particular issue or not. The "right/just" answer would be found more quickly and more cheaply and more rationally if the judge would simply decide that first in a non-binding way, like "from what I know so far, here's the way this is tilted". Then after that, if the losers wanted to spend money to present a stronger case they could, and the judge could say "warmer...warmer... colder". Then after all that, if you want to try to change the thing on a technicality like "yeah but you didn't serve the notice the right way", then the court would hear that. The way courts decide things is to completely front-load all these arcane minor points, and it has the effect of squeezing the shit out of the litigants to force them to settle. "You think you have a legal dispute that's worth this much? I'll give you dispute resolution that costs more and much of your life. Now do you want to settle? Don't test me, as a judge I'm a former attorney, we win at this game. Now do you want to settle?"

clavalle 10y ago
You are right. Having money equips someone to at least be able to put up a fight to reach a conclusion but that is not the heart of the issue. Whether you have money or not the real problem is the threat of loss due to the /process/ as opposed the merits and likely result of the case. That is the problem that needs to be solved. I'm not saying I know how to remove the expense of the process out of the equation but that is what needs to be done. Your suggestion is a good one. If the result itself is clearer earlier it would take some of the power out of the threat of expensive process.
- thegasman 10y ago
  Many of the issues raised by your comment are the result of civil procedural rules. These rules are not intentionally designed to postpone rulings on the merits, and instead were built on historical understandings of how a dispute should be fairly addressed: 1) communicate problem to adverse party 2) adverse party responds 3) fact-finding 4) written arguments aimed at resolution 5) trial by judge/peers (if necessary). I don't believe that moving #4 (or even #5) earlier in the process maximizes the possibility of a logically/legally sound conclusion, which IMO, is the purpose of the justice system. Then again, your comment has identified speed as a priority, not a thorough examination of the merits. If the procedural rules don't offend you, then we might just be talking about expensive lawyers. Not all lawyers are expensive.
  - clavalle 10y ago
    Not speed but cost of which time is definitely a factor. Getting to the merits is the point but the point is often lost in the game of the process. True statement?
    - thegasman 10y ago
      >Getting to the merits is the point but the point is often lost in the game of the process. True statement? True, but you're assuming that the process and the merits are totally distinct (in fact, my own comment reads that way ;]). But, as another commenter noted, processes themselves can influence merits (e.g. missing a filing deadline, or enforcing discovery requests).
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
js471 10y ago
I would love to see more negative publicity used. A PR firm is a fraction of the cost of a law firm but can do a lot more damage to the other side. Unfortunately lawyers have this dogma that says never ever ever ever ever try to use negative publicity. This is obviously self serving. Most lawyers are clueless about social media post AOL and so this would take the battle into unfamiliar territory. Unfortunately the judges are in the same boat: Taking a legal matter to court of public opinion is to them like taking getting your gall bladder removed by a witch doctor.
- sparky_z 10y ago
  Wouldn't that just result in a new normal where both sides immediately fight it out in the court of public opinion? How would that be an improvement?
  - js471 10y ago
    Because it's vastly cheaper and accessible. It's also crowdsourceable and can be done by anybody without having to pass any bar exams.
- sheepleherd 10y ago
  Negative PR is used; unfortunately, it's used on the judge to turn the judge against the other side. It comes so thick and fast the judges get sick of it... yet, they are influenced by it, and they bluster but issue no pain to the offenders. And don't try it if you are not a lawyer, lawyers in court are a protected class.
orbitingpluto 10y ago
Nothing astounds me more than the Herculean lengths a judge will go to to avoid the 'core legal questions' in a case. Not only in the judgement, but by disallowing even the most basic testimony or evidence to be presented. While this violates due process or 'the principle of natural justice', no judge on appeal ever seems to rule that the lower court judge was acting in an obviously corrupt manner. The fiction of the system of justice has to be preserved. This is further compounded by how vague judges will be in their decisions in some attempt to prevent a successful appeal. The judgements relation to the facts are so intentionally obtuse.
- gohrt 10y ago
  > no judge on appeal ever seems to rule that the lower court judge was acting in an obviously corrupt manner. There are a few reasons for this: 1. Judges are not legislators. Judges apply the law, and if they don't like the law, or if the law is contradictory, they write a note in the decision asking legistlators to review the law. 2. If a lower-court judge is corrupt, but didn't violate legal procedure, what does "corrupt" mean?
  - orbitingpluto 10y ago
    Many judges seem to exert themselves in finding excuses to not have to apply the law, to not have to do their job at all, and to escape consideration of the lawsuit at hand. A higher court will only consider an error in law from a lower court. But when the lower court commits an violation of natural justice/due process by not even considering what the original lawsuit is about and being incredibly obtuse about what they did consider, a higher court has nothing to rule on.
- Kliment 10y ago
  The supreme court routinely smacks down the federal circuit verbally for not following higher court guidance, but it seems to have no repercussions.
pdabbadabba 10y ago
I'm one of those hated attorneys. And, in my experience, while there are issues that sometimes may seem to outsiders like pointless minutae that keep people from getting at the real issues, the rules of civil procedure (especially at the federal level) are designed to do exactly what you want: to facilitate getting to the core of the issue as fast as possible (of course, if the core of the issue is a factual question, this can take a while due to pesky things like discovery and jury trials). Without more detail, the problems you describe sound, with respect, like the complaints of someone who does not really understand how litigation works. Maybe if you could put a little meat on the bones I (and we) could understand your criticisms of the system a little better. In this example, as you say, "there is a question as to whether this patent is valid or not, and whether it covers this particular issue or not." If the defendant thinks those are real issues, then one of the first things the rules would have you do is to file a motion to dismiss arguing exactly those points. If the judge agrees with you, the case is over and you go home. (Of course, there is the possibility that there are other claims that aren't subject to those arguments, or that the plaintiff could amend the complaint to add new legal theories, but that's another story.) To the extent it is true that courts "completely front-load all these arcane minor points" this is usually true only to the extent that these arcane issues are actually dispositive. EDIT: Try thinking about it this way: whether an issue is arcane, and not what a person might think is the "real" core of the issue, is sometimes orthogonal to whether that issue is dispositive. And there are usually good reasons for this--though reasons that may not be obvious to non-lawyers. This can, and should, result in courts spending what may seem to the untrained eye like too much time on arcane but dispositive issues in an attempt to resolve a case efficiently.
- clavalle 10y ago
  > one of the first things the rules would have you do is to file a motion to dismiss arguing exactly those points. Great! How much would getting to that point typically cost a defendant in the case of a fairly obvious bullshit patent?
  - pdabbadabba 10y ago
    Possibly quite a bit, if you want it done well. And that's a problem. But that has little to do with the point I was making.

clavalle 10y ago

You are right. Having money equips someone to at least be able to put up a fight to reach a conclusion but that is not the heart of the issue. Whether you have money or not the real problem is the threat of loss due to the /process/ as opposed the merits and likely result of the case. That is the problem that needs to be solved. I'm not saying I know how to remove the expense of the process out of the equation but that is what needs to be done. Your suggestion is a good one. If the result itself is clearer earlier it would take some of the power out of the threat of expensive process.

thegasman 10y ago
Many of the issues raised by your comment are the result of civil procedural rules. These rules are not intentionally designed to postpone rulings on the merits, and instead were built on historical understandings of how a dispute should be fairly addressed: 1) communicate problem to adverse party 2) adverse party responds 3) fact-finding 4) written arguments aimed at resolution 5) trial by judge/peers (if necessary). I don't believe that moving #4 (or even #5) earlier in the process maximizes the possibility of a logically/legally sound conclusion, which IMO, is the purpose of the justice system. Then again, your comment has identified speed as a priority, not a thorough examination of the merits. If the procedural rules don't offend you, then we might just be talking about expensive lawyers. Not all lawyers are expensive.
- clavalle 10y ago
  Not speed but cost of which time is definitely a factor. Getting to the merits is the point but the point is often lost in the game of the process. True statement?
  - thegasman 10y ago
    >Getting to the merits is the point but the point is often lost in the game of the process. True statement? True, but you're assuming that the process and the merits are totally distinct (in fact, my own comment reads that way ;]). But, as another commenter noted, processes themselves can influence merits (e.g. missing a filing deadline, or enforcing discovery requests).
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

js471 10y ago

I would love to see more negative publicity used. A PR firm is a fraction of the cost of a law firm but can do a lot more damage to the other side. Unfortunately lawyers have this dogma that says never ever ever ever ever try to use negative publicity. This is obviously self serving. Most lawyers are clueless about social media post AOL and so this would take the battle into unfamiliar territory. Unfortunately the judges are in the same boat: Taking a legal matter to court of public opinion is to them like taking getting your gall bladder removed by a witch doctor.

sparky_z 10y ago
Wouldn't that just result in a new normal where both sides immediately fight it out in the court of public opinion? How would that be an improvement?
- js471 10y ago
  Because it's vastly cheaper and accessible. It's also crowdsourceable and can be done by anybody without having to pass any bar exams.
sheepleherd 10y ago
Negative PR is used; unfortunately, it's used on the judge to turn the judge against the other side. It comes so thick and fast the judges get sick of it... yet, they are influenced by it, and they bluster but issue no pain to the offenders. And don't try it if you are not a lawyer, lawyers in court are a protected class.

orbitingpluto 10y ago

Nothing astounds me more than the Herculean lengths a judge will go to to avoid the 'core legal questions' in a case. Not only in the judgement, but by disallowing even the most basic testimony or evidence to be presented. While this violates due process or 'the principle of natural justice', no judge on appeal ever seems to rule that the lower court judge was acting in an obviously corrupt manner. The fiction of the system of justice has to be preserved. This is further compounded by how vague judges will be in their decisions in some attempt to prevent a successful appeal. The judgements relation to the facts are so intentionally obtuse.

gohrt 10y ago
> no judge on appeal ever seems to rule that the lower court judge was acting in an obviously corrupt manner. There are a few reasons for this: 1. Judges are not legislators. Judges apply the law, and if they don't like the law, or if the law is contradictory, they write a note in the decision asking legistlators to review the law. 2. If a lower-court judge is corrupt, but didn't violate legal procedure, what does "corrupt" mean?
- orbitingpluto 10y ago
  Many judges seem to exert themselves in finding excuses to not have to apply the law, to not have to do their job at all, and to escape consideration of the lawsuit at hand. A higher court will only consider an error in law from a lower court. But when the lower court commits an violation of natural justice/due process by not even considering what the original lawsuit is about and being incredibly obtuse about what they did consider, a higher court has nothing to rule on.
Kliment 10y ago
The supreme court routinely smacks down the federal circuit verbally for not following higher court guidance, but it seems to have no repercussions.

pdabbadabba 10y ago

I'm one of those hated attorneys. And, in my experience, while there are issues that sometimes may seem to outsiders like pointless minutae that keep people from getting at the real issues, the rules of civil procedure (especially at the federal level) are designed to do exactly what you want: to facilitate getting to the core of the issue as fast as possible (of course, if the core of the issue is a factual question, this can take a while due to pesky things like discovery and jury trials). Without more detail, the problems you describe sound, with respect, like the complaints of someone who does not really understand how litigation works. Maybe if you could put a little meat on the bones I (and we) could understand your criticisms of the system a little better. In this example, as you say, "there is a question as to whether this patent is valid or not, and whether it covers this particular issue or not." If the defendant thinks those are real issues, then one of the first things the rules would have you do is to file a motion to dismiss arguing exactly those points. If the judge agrees with you, the case is over and you go home. (Of course, there is the possibility that there are other claims that aren't subject to those arguments, or that the plaintiff could amend the complaint to add new legal theories, but that's another story.) To the extent it is true that courts "completely front-load all these arcane minor points" this is usually true only to the extent that these arcane issues are actually dispositive. EDIT: Try thinking about it this way: whether an issue is arcane, and not what a person might think is the "real" core of the issue, is sometimes orthogonal to whether that issue is dispositive. And there are usually good reasons for this--though reasons that may not be obvious to non-lawyers. This can, and should, result in courts spending what may seem to the untrained eye like too much time on arcane but dispositive issues in an attempt to resolve a case efficiently.

clavalle 10y ago
> one of the first things the rules would have you do is to file a motion to dismiss arguing exactly those points. Great! How much would getting to that point typically cost a defendant in the case of a fairly obvious bullshit patent?
- pdabbadabba 10y ago
  Possibly quite a bit, if you want it done well. And that's a problem. But that has little to do with the point I was making.