8 ms·

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 a

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proliferation and law sizes with no condensing efforts or even garbage collection of long unenforced, obviously superceded by higher courts, or so removed from societal context to be nonsensical laws.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.
    - kazinator 8y ago
      Another scenario: say you have this $1500 review and it uncovers issues. You want the house anyway and try to negotiate the price down. Oops, the house goes to the next bidder who didn't bother with such a review. Basically, all you can do with the review is to "know what you're getting into".
      - pnw_hazor 8y ago
        In residential deal, the legal review comes after the offer has been accepted and the title co has provided a title commitment and proposed title insurance policy but before closing. Depending on the discovered issues, if any, your offer may be voidable or in a worse case you will have to forgo your earnest money. Still better than losing the whole house years later because of something like an incorrectly handled DIY divorce.
      - bradknowles 8y ago
        Depending on the jurisdiction, anything discovered in a detailed inspection of this sort will have to be disclosed to any future buyers. So, in that case, it would be to the best interest of the seller to reduce their asking price and/or fix the major problems that were found, so that they no longer have to carry this legal burden going forward. Yes, this happened to me and my wife (she's the lawyer in the family), and this resulted in us getting over $12,000 cut off the purchase price of our house, in addition to getting a number of major problems fixed before the deal actually went through. IANAL myself, and I can't make any claims that anyone else will necessarily benefit in the same way, but that detailed inspection of the house-to-be-bought can be worth 10x the cost you pay for it -- or more.
  - haberman 8y ago
    Review of what? As I understand it, the title company reviews and insures everything related to the title. And the Purchase and Sale agreement is a standard form contract. What would a buyer need a lawyer to review?
    - pnw_hazor 8y ago
      Here, for example, you overstated the responsibilities/duties of the title company. A title company's promise to insure real property titles/deeds comes with many (sometimes pages) of exceptions or disclaimers that depend on the state of the title history. Stuff they don't understand (confused records, muddled divorce/death histories, old easements, etc.) they will disclaim from the coverage. Title companies provide a several page title commitment that describes the state of the world as they see it and given that state-of-the-world they craft and issue a policy. They don't guarantee against things not included in the title commitment they disclaim them away. In most cases, especially in developed urban areas, the default works. But if there are edge conditions, the title policy often doesn't fix them because the policy disclaims around them. But if you read and understand the title commitment and trace the title history yourself (or hire lawyer to do so), you can challenge the title company to remove unwanted disclaimers or add additional protections before you close. Also, you can identify potential chain of title issues and have the seller fix them before closing. edit: s/misstated/overstated/
  - marssaxman 8y ago
    A one-percenter buying a million-dollar house might well consider it reasonable to hire a lawyer to help out with something as ordinary as a home purchase, but the rest of us aren't buying million-dollar houses and don't routinely get legal advice about anything. When I bought my house, I had $30k to spend as a down payment; no way would it have made sense to waste 5% of that on unnecessary legal work. (What would lawyers have even theoretically been able to tell me, anyway?)
  - dsnuh 8y ago
    Anecdata, but I spent about $30K in attorney and court fees during my divorce, and I got a reduced hourly rate and retainer because I was buddies with a guy that clerked for him. It definitely didn't feel like a bargain, but so much of what you are paying for is the knowledge of what needs to be filled, when, maintaining the case docket, serving discovery, filing motions, etc. and all of these can be incredibly puzzling for someone not familiar with proceedings of the court.
- OliverJones 8y ago
  Inhouse lawyers cost about ther same as grade A developers or sales people. Certainly less than most executives. Why do lawyers choose to work inhouse? Because working at white-shoe law firms means 90 hours a week. You don't HAVE to use Wilson and $onsini to look at incoming NDAs, for example. The whole point of writing fair form contracts is to remove legal burden when deals get done, without compromising the outcome or the rights of either party. It's true that VCs have close relationships with certain white shoe law firms, so legal costs can be high when closing rounds of financing. Grumble about it, for sure. Consider it a tax on the money you raise. But don't fall into the trap of thinking that same law firm is "your lawyers," and you can't get help from other lawyers.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
someguydave 8y ago
Except in the case of lawyers and doctors, the gatekeeping is explicitly enforced by law. You cannot write your own prescriptions, and while you can represent yourself in court, the lawyers who run the court do everything to ensure you will likely stumble. Guilds who control legally enforced gates require some kind of counterbalancing force to ensure that they don't work for their own interest rather than the public interest (for which they have been empowered by the government to work). My point is that if your guild is entrusted with monopoly power by the government, the guild's behavior must be held to a higher standard (work must be in the public's interest, not in the guild member's individual interest). Unfortunately this point seems to be lost in modern culture.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  > while you can represent yourself in court, the lawyers who run the court do everything to ensure you will likely stumble Non-lawyers who represent themselves in court don't stumble because of a sinister conspiracy by lawyers to trip them up. They stumble because law is a really complicated subject, and no matter how smart you are it's impossible to replace years of full-time learning with a little reading on the side. The saying "a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client" is hundreds of years old.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - someguydave 8y ago
    Yes but the complexity serves the interest of lawyers collectively and individually. I would argue that is precisely a conspiracy against the public interest. Put another way: nobody individually profits when the law is made simple and clear.
    - pnw_hazor 8y ago
      Laws/legal procedures are complicated because the world and its actors are complicated. And not all actors are acting in good faith, with the same facts, or even rationally. If you want to have rule of law relying on simple laws just doesn't cut it most of the time. Now, legalese can and should be reduced, modern lawyers are working on that. But laws will always be used to enforce/define complex systems or relationships. This often requires complex rules.
techopoly 8y ago
This is a fascinating point. I suspect it also has to do with the DIY mentality of the typical American (which can be a good thing of course). But there's nothing like seeing an expert walk into a situation where a bunch of amateurs are squabbling, and seeing the expert just take over the situation. Expertise is still supremely valuable, even if it's unfashionable.
paulgrant999 8y ago
I'm an expert the law. I can prove to you, that the entire legal system, is ABSOLUTELY, UNEQUIVOCALLY, broken beyond repair (at least for its stated purpose; as an extortion racket i.e. by the pen and not the sword, its pretty fucking good!). And I can tell you right now; my advice is is worth a nickel. Its like a doctor, taking care of a terminally-ill patient, where the doctor knows its hopeless, but the patient still doesn't. You try and make them comfortable. But in the end, they're still going to die. That is where the "rejection" of experts is coming from. People realize, that the "experts" are essentially, worthless. The higher the price on an "expert", the more likely his judgement is compromised. Same goes with "agenda"-driven experts. #1 thing, you need in an expert, is trust. EVEN before knowledge (which can be acquired in media res). If you can't trust that your "expert" is acting on your behalf, than that expert, is WORTHLESS. Why do you think so many fin.product sellers, are desperate to escape "fiduciary" responsibilities? Because it makes them liable, for acting against your interests.
dsnuh 8y ago
While I don't disagree with much of what you said, I think it misses the point of the article, which is that the legal industry has a hard time using new tech, because they don't trust anything not created in-house. Breaking into the market is difficult, even if the gains the tech would bring are enormous. I've seen this first hand, as I had a brutal two year long divorce case, and in spending time with my attorney, got to see many opportunities for technology to improve their jobs. I actually wrote some Python to calculate something called the Hug/Nelson formula to figure out community property interest in options/RSUs. I was really surprised that nothing existed to do this for me, and even played with the idea of making an app to sell to lawyers, because they are seeing more and more divorce cases with these types of assets being split. But where to start? How do you "certify" something to the degree that a lawyer will trust it? It's a huge market potential I think, but the status quo seems pretty entrenched.

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.
  - kazinator 8y ago
    Another scenario: say you have this $1500 review and it uncovers issues. You want the house anyway and try to negotiate the price down. Oops, the house goes to the next bidder who didn't bother with such a review. Basically, all you can do with the review is to "know what you're getting into".
    - pnw_hazor 8y ago
      In residential deal, the legal review comes after the offer has been accepted and the title co has provided a title commitment and proposed title insurance policy but before closing. Depending on the discovered issues, if any, your offer may be voidable or in a worse case you will have to forgo your earnest money. Still better than losing the whole house years later because of something like an incorrectly handled DIY divorce.
    - bradknowles 8y ago
      Depending on the jurisdiction, anything discovered in a detailed inspection of this sort will have to be disclosed to any future buyers. So, in that case, it would be to the best interest of the seller to reduce their asking price and/or fix the major problems that were found, so that they no longer have to carry this legal burden going forward. Yes, this happened to me and my wife (she's the lawyer in the family), and this resulted in us getting over $12,000 cut off the purchase price of our house, in addition to getting a number of major problems fixed before the deal actually went through. IANAL myself, and I can't make any claims that anyone else will necessarily benefit in the same way, but that detailed inspection of the house-to-be-bought can be worth 10x the cost you pay for it -- or more.
- haberman 8y ago
  Review of what? As I understand it, the title company reviews and insures everything related to the title. And the Purchase and Sale agreement is a standard form contract. What would a buyer need a lawyer to review?
  - pnw_hazor 8y ago
    Here, for example, you overstated the responsibilities/duties of the title company. A title company's promise to insure real property titles/deeds comes with many (sometimes pages) of exceptions or disclaimers that depend on the state of the title history. Stuff they don't understand (confused records, muddled divorce/death histories, old easements, etc.) they will disclaim from the coverage. Title companies provide a several page title commitment that describes the state of the world as they see it and given that state-of-the-world they craft and issue a policy. They don't guarantee against things not included in the title commitment they disclaim them away. In most cases, especially in developed urban areas, the default works. But if there are edge conditions, the title policy often doesn't fix them because the policy disclaims around them. But if you read and understand the title commitment and trace the title history yourself (or hire lawyer to do so), you can challenge the title company to remove unwanted disclaimers or add additional protections before you close. Also, you can identify potential chain of title issues and have the seller fix them before closing. edit: s/misstated/overstated/
- marssaxman 8y ago
  A one-percenter buying a million-dollar house might well consider it reasonable to hire a lawyer to help out with something as ordinary as a home purchase, but the rest of us aren't buying million-dollar houses and don't routinely get legal advice about anything. When I bought my house, I had $30k to spend as a down payment; no way would it have made sense to waste 5% of that on unnecessary legal work. (What would lawyers have even theoretically been able to tell me, anyway?)
- dsnuh 8y ago
  Anecdata, but I spent about $30K in attorney and court fees during my divorce, and I got a reduced hourly rate and retainer because I was buddies with a guy that clerked for him. It definitely didn't feel like a bargain, but so much of what you are paying for is the knowledge of what needs to be filled, when, maintaining the case docket, serving discovery, filing motions, etc. and all of these can be incredibly puzzling for someone not familiar with proceedings of the court.
OliverJones 8y ago
Inhouse lawyers cost about ther same as grade A developers or sales people. Certainly less than most executives. Why do lawyers choose to work inhouse? Because working at white-shoe law firms means 90 hours a week. You don't HAVE to use Wilson and $onsini to look at incoming NDAs, for example. The whole point of writing fair form contracts is to remove legal burden when deals get done, without compromising the outcome or the rights of either party. It's true that VCs have close relationships with certain white shoe law firms, so legal costs can be high when closing rounds of financing. Grumble about it, for sure. Consider it a tax on the money you raise. But don't fall into the trap of thinking that same law firm is "your lawyers," and you can't get help from other lawyers.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

someguydave 8y ago

Except in the case of lawyers and doctors, the gatekeeping is explicitly enforced by law. You cannot write your own prescriptions, and while you can represent yourself in court, the lawyers who run the court do everything to ensure you will likely stumble. Guilds who control legally enforced gates require some kind of counterbalancing force to ensure that they don't work for their own interest rather than the public interest (for which they have been empowered by the government to work). My point is that if your guild is entrusted with monopoly power by the government, the guild's behavior must be held to a higher standard (work must be in the public's interest, not in the guild member's individual interest). Unfortunately this point seems to be lost in modern culture.

smacktoward 8y ago
> while you can represent yourself in court, the lawyers who run the court do everything to ensure you will likely stumble Non-lawyers who represent themselves in court don't stumble because of a sinister conspiracy by lawyers to trip them up. They stumble because law is a really complicated subject, and no matter how smart you are it's impossible to replace years of full-time learning with a little reading on the side. The saying "a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client" is hundreds of years old.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- someguydave 8y ago
  Yes but the complexity serves the interest of lawyers collectively and individually. I would argue that is precisely a conspiracy against the public interest. Put another way: nobody individually profits when the law is made simple and clear.
  - pnw_hazor 8y ago
    Laws/legal procedures are complicated because the world and its actors are complicated. And not all actors are acting in good faith, with the same facts, or even rationally. If you want to have rule of law relying on simple laws just doesn't cut it most of the time. Now, legalese can and should be reduced, modern lawyers are working on that. But laws will always be used to enforce/define complex systems or relationships. This often requires complex rules.

techopoly 8y ago

This is a fascinating point. I suspect it also has to do with the DIY mentality of the typical American (which can be a good thing of course). But there's nothing like seeing an expert walk into a situation where a bunch of amateurs are squabbling, and seeing the expert just take over the situation. Expertise is still supremely valuable, even if it's unfashionable.

paulgrant999 8y ago

I'm an expert the law. I can prove to you, that the entire legal system, is ABSOLUTELY, UNEQUIVOCALLY, broken beyond repair (at least for its stated purpose; as an extortion racket i.e. by the pen and not the sword, its pretty fucking good!). And I can tell you right now; my advice is is worth a nickel. Its like a doctor, taking care of a terminally-ill patient, where the doctor knows its hopeless, but the patient still doesn't. You try and make them comfortable. But in the end, they're still going to die. That is where the "rejection" of experts is coming from. People realize, that the "experts" are essentially, worthless. The higher the price on an "expert", the more likely his judgement is compromised. Same goes with "agenda"-driven experts. #1 thing, you need in an expert, is trust. EVEN before knowledge (which can be acquired in media res). If you can't trust that your "expert" is acting on your behalf, than that expert, is WORTHLESS. Why do you think so many fin.product sellers, are desperate to escape "fiduciary" responsibilities? Because it makes them liable, for acting against your interests.

dsnuh 8y ago

While I don't disagree with much of what you said, I think it misses the point of the article, which is that the legal industry has a hard time using new tech, because they don't trust anything not created in-house. Breaking into the market is difficult, even if the gains the tech would bring are enormous. I've seen this first hand, as I had a brutal two year long divorce case, and in spending time with my attorney, got to see many opportunities for technology to improve their jobs. I actually wrote some Python to calculate something called the Hug/Nelson formula to figure out community property interest in options/RSUs. I was really surprised that nothing existed to do this for me, and even played with the idea of making an app to sell to lawyers, because they are seeing more and more divorce cases with these types of assets being split. But where to start? How do you "certify" something to the degree that a lawyer will trust it? It's a huge market potential I think, but the status quo seems pretty entrenched.