8 ms·

My spouse is a human lawyer. She's working now for a software company; she did her part taking it public a few years ago. She knows our trade pretty well. The

My spouse is a human lawyer. She's working now for a software company; she did her part taking it public a few years ago. She knows our trade pretty well. The difference between a lawyer on the one hand, and a "jailhouse lawyer" (an engineer who does legalish work) on the other, are these: The lawyer knows how to get things done to support the business. It's rare for a real in-house lawyer to tell the business, "we can't do that." More often, it's "here's how we do that." The lawyer knows how to write a form contract (sales, lease, nondisclosure, etc) so other lawyers will read it and say "ok, that's fair" and sign it. The lawyer knows how to read an incoming form contract to see if it's fair. The lawyer has real relationships with her counterparts at customer and vendor companies. When a vendor tries to change terms, she calls her counterpart and asks, "what's this about? My business has problems with this. How can we get to yes?" The lawyer knows that if a dispute gets to a judge, the remedy will be money. With very few exceptions there's no way for a judge to repair a business deal that's gone sideways. So the lawyer says, "anything but court." At some level, the law is like computer code. But the computer code has been around for many centuries and it has been patched over and over and over again as needed to solve real-world problems: in the US and English system that's called "case law.". There's an adage that "hard cases make bad case law." Lawyers know the ins and outs of this stuff. In my experience as an entrepreneur, when I've played lawyer I've generally overdone things to my detriment. The US is definitely litigation-happy. That makes things tough.

someguydave 8y ago
I believe you. It is unfortunate that the implicit knowledge and professional relationships you mention are not available to non-lawyers.
- drchiu 8y ago
  It's almost a right of passage to be part of the "trade", so to speak. Same thing goes for doctors. When a doctor recognizes the counterparty is a a fellow physician, the conversation changes to reflect that. There are exceptions (as do all things in the world), but this professional courtesy happens regardless of whether the two parties have ever had a prior relationship.
  - bwanab 8y ago
    Is that really any different than a python developer explaining a piece of code changing the conversation when they realize they're speaking to someone else that's also a python developer?
    - someguydave 8y ago
      Yes but in that case disputes between developers can ultimately be resolved by examining the source code. In the case of lawyers nobody can really give you an unambiguously correct answer except in a judgement in court for one case and one set of circumstances.
smacktoward 8y ago
I feel like the rise of the "legalish"/"jailhouse lawyer" type person is just a facet of a broader societal trend towards the rejection of expertise. Experts are gatekeepers, and the whole thrust of the culture over the last few decades has been towards the removal of gatekeepers, towards the "democratization" of everything. Who needs journalism when you have blogs and social media? Who needs doctors when you have WebMD and Goop? Who needs lawyers when you have LegalZoom and YouTube? The problem, of course, being that experts are called experts because they know stuff that you don't, and as we drive all the experts out of the public square the vacuum left behind as their knowledge departs is being filled by dangerous nonsense. "Democratization" is not proving to be a very good advertisement for democracy. The less fashionable expertise becomes, the more I find I appreciate it.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Lawyers are also infamously expensive in billable hours. Not to mention scope creep of law both with contract proliferation and law sizes with no condensing efforts or even garbage collection of long unenforced, obviously superceded by higher courts, or so removed from societal context to be nonsensical laws. If it is omnipresent enough and too expensive to defer everyone had to practice some law then.
  - pnw_hazor 8y ago
    Are lawyers that expensive? People will not even pay a $1500 for an independent review of a $1million home purchase. Most just blindly follow their real estate agent's advice even though such agents are usually hopelessly conflicted because of their own financial interest in getting the deal done.
    - kirkules 8y ago
      That's not a completely fair example, though, for a number of reasons. If you think there's an honest chance that a $1500 independent review could turn up something that would make you turn down the deal and try to find another, do you then expect to have another $1500 review done? What expectation should you, a non-expert in doing this kind of calculation, have about the total cost of having independent reviews done? Also, $1500/$1million sounds tiny, but nobody who thinks they can't afford a $1500 review buys a $1million house in cash; they get a mortgage and expect to pay $4.5k/month, and people in general don't save (or have the ability to save) as much as I do/would. So it's $1500/$4500 in the immediate future of having to make your first payment, on top of closing costs, etc., for benefit that is already unclear to a non-expert. And by definition we're talking about a non-expert, because that's why they would have the need to hire a lawyer to do an independent review. Anyway, it's not that I necessarily think lawyers are that expensive across the board, but the existence of that perception shouldn't be very confusing. A non-expert doesn't have the tools to accurately put a value on expert services.
fierarul 8y ago
> In my experience as an entrepreneur, when I've played lawyer I've generally overdone things to my detriment. This seems interesting. Do you have examples? I know I once got stuck on a clause that was not 'fair' but my advisor said it's a minor and the other side probably didn't want to involve their much more expensive lawyer (firm) to change that paragraph.
nitwit005 8y ago
> It's rare for a real in-house lawyer to tell the business, "we can't do that." More often, it's "here's how we do that." I've found the opposite. Saying "no" is almost always a safe answer, or at least an answer that won't get them fired, which seems to create a bias that direction. I'm sure it's a bit different when the CEO asks, but most of us unfortunately have to go talk to the company lawyers without running things.
- bradknowles 8y ago
  In my experience, it is the good business lawyer (whether in-house counsel or outside counsel) who will tell you what the risks are, and then it's the choice of the business to decide which risks they want to take. However, there's also the case where the shitstorm is so bad that they lawyers have a legal and moral obligation to tell you (and the CEO, and the Board of Directors) that what you're doing is wrong and illegal, and maybe even quit over grossly inappropriate or negligent activities.
paulgrant999 8y ago
> At some level, the law is like computer code. LOL. This is so wrong, its not even funny. Lawyers, are incompetent. If you haven't come to that realization yet; its because you haven't dealt with enough of them. It is -extremely- rare, even at the higher levels of pay, to get a lawyer, who actually knows the specifics of your case. In a very real way, its all ad-hoc expertise. A series of one-off's you try, to get a compromise your client can accept. > Lawyers know the ins and outs of this stuff. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah right.
- dang 8y ago
  Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments, especially rants, to HN? We're trying for better than that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - paulgrant999 8y ago
    > It is -extremely- rare, even at the higher levels of pay, to get a lawyer, who actually knows the specifics of your case. > In a very real way, its all ad-hoc expertise. > A series of one-off's you try, to get a compromise your client can accept. ^^^ substantive comments. Not "ranty". Points. Made in logical order. You may not like them. But they are there.
dsnuh 8y ago
I noticed this "getting to yes" attitude with my lawyer , and realized after a while it was because all the back and forth communication, discovery, on and on... it all took forever, and at pretty much any point the other side could choose to throw a wrench in the works. It's something I really tried to internalize after my divorce finally ended after two years and many thousands of dollars in legal fees, finally settling for near what the ex and I had discussed before we brought lawyers into the picture.

someguydave 8y ago

I believe you. It is unfortunate that the implicit knowledge and professional relationships you mention are not available to non-lawyers.

drchiu 8y ago
It's almost a right of passage to be part of the "trade", so to speak. Same thing goes for doctors. When a doctor recognizes the counterparty is a a fellow physician, the conversation changes to reflect that. There are exceptions (as do all things in the world), but this professional courtesy happens regardless of whether the two parties have ever had a prior relationship.
- bwanab 8y ago
  Is that really any different than a python developer explaining a piece of code changing the conversation when they realize they're speaking to someone else that's also a python developer?
  - someguydave 8y ago
    Yes but in that case disputes between developers can ultimately be resolved by examining the source code. In the case of lawyers nobody can really give you an unambiguously correct answer except in a judgement in court for one case and one set of circumstances.

smacktoward 8y ago

I feel like the rise of the "legalish"/"jailhouse lawyer" type person is just a facet of a broader societal trend towards the rejection of expertise. Experts are gatekeepers, and the whole thrust of the culture over the last few decades has been towards the removal of gatekeepers, towards the "democratization" of everything. Who needs journalism when you have blogs and social media? Who needs doctors when you have WebMD and Goop? Who needs lawyers when you have LegalZoom and YouTube? The problem, of course, being that experts are called experts because they know stuff that you don't, and as we drive all the experts out of the public square the vacuum left behind as their knowledge departs is being filled by dangerous nonsense. "Democratization" is not proving to be a very good advertisement for democracy. The less fashionable expertise becomes, the more I find I appreciate it.

Nasrudith 8y ago
Lawyers are also infamously expensive in billable hours. Not to mention scope creep of law both with contract proliferation and law sizes with no condensing efforts or even garbage collection of long unenforced, obviously superceded by higher courts, or so removed from societal context to be nonsensical laws. If it is omnipresent enough and too expensive to defer everyone had to practice some law then.
- pnw_hazor 8y ago
  Are lawyers that expensive? People will not even pay a $1500 for an independent review of a $1million home purchase. Most just blindly follow their real estate agent's advice even though such agents are usually hopelessly conflicted because of their own financial interest in getting the deal done.
  - kirkules 8y ago
    That's not a completely fair example, though, for a number of reasons. If you think there's an honest chance that a $1500 independent review could turn up something that would make you turn down the deal and try to find another, do you then expect to have another $1500 review done? What expectation should you, a non-expert in doing this kind of calculation, have about the total cost of having independent reviews done? Also, $1500/$1million sounds tiny, but nobody who thinks they can't afford a $1500 review buys a $1million house in cash; they get a mortgage and expect to pay $4.5k/month, and people in general don't save (or have the ability to save) as much as I do/would. So it's $1500/$4500 in the immediate future of having to make your first payment, on top of closing costs, etc., for benefit that is already unclear to a non-expert. And by definition we're talking about a non-expert, because that's why they would have the need to hire a lawyer to do an independent review. Anyway, it's not that I necessarily think lawyers are that expensive across the board, but the existence of that perception shouldn't be very confusing. A non-expert doesn't have the tools to accurately put a value on expert services.

fierarul 8y ago

> In my experience as an entrepreneur, when I've played lawyer I've generally overdone things to my detriment. This seems interesting. Do you have examples? I know I once got stuck on a clause that was not 'fair' but my advisor said it's a minor and the other side probably didn't want to involve their much more expensive lawyer (firm) to change that paragraph.

nitwit005 8y ago

> It's rare for a real in-house lawyer to tell the business, "we can't do that." More often, it's "here's how we do that." I've found the opposite. Saying "no" is almost always a safe answer, or at least an answer that won't get them fired, which seems to create a bias that direction. I'm sure it's a bit different when the CEO asks, but most of us unfortunately have to go talk to the company lawyers without running things.

bradknowles 8y ago
In my experience, it is the good business lawyer (whether in-house counsel or outside counsel) who will tell you what the risks are, and then it's the choice of the business to decide which risks they want to take. However, there's also the case where the shitstorm is so bad that they lawyers have a legal and moral obligation to tell you (and the CEO, and the Board of Directors) that what you're doing is wrong and illegal, and maybe even quit over grossly inappropriate or negligent activities.

paulgrant999 8y ago

> At some level, the law is like computer code. LOL. This is so wrong, its not even funny. Lawyers, are incompetent. If you haven't come to that realization yet; its because you haven't dealt with enough of them. It is -extremely- rare, even at the higher levels of pay, to get a lawyer, who actually knows the specifics of your case. In a very real way, its all ad-hoc expertise. A series of one-off's you try, to get a compromise your client can accept. > Lawyers know the ins and outs of this stuff. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah right.

dang 8y ago
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments, especially rants, to HN? We're trying for better than that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- paulgrant999 8y ago
  > It is -extremely- rare, even at the higher levels of pay, to get a lawyer, who actually knows the specifics of your case. > In a very real way, its all ad-hoc expertise. > A series of one-off's you try, to get a compromise your client can accept. ^^^ substantive comments. Not "ranty". Points. Made in logical order. You may not like them. But they are there.

dsnuh 8y ago

I noticed this "getting to yes" attitude with my lawyer , and realized after a while it was because all the back and forth communication, discovery, on and on... it all took forever, and at pretty much any point the other side could choose to throw a wrench in the works. It's something I really tried to internalize after my divorce finally ended after two years and many thousands of dollars in legal fees, finally settling for near what the ex and I had discussed before we brought lawyers into the picture.