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> A lot less dangerous than the alternative of not hiring a Bridge Engineer at all and still having to build the bridge, which is the analogous situation for le

> A lot less dangerous than the alternative of not hiring a Bridge Engineer at all and still having to build the bridge, which is the analogous situation for legal services. That is the absurdity here though, that people are being forced to build a bridge with no support. With more funding, we could provide an engineer for every bridge (and a lawyer for every case). Nobody should be forced to go through the legal system without an lawyer. Period. The number of lawyers has been growing in recent years. It's hard to claim standards are too high when more people are becoming lawyers than ever before. See: http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyer_population_15_higher_than_10_years_ago_new_aba_data_shows http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyer_population_15_... But those lawyers aren't working as public defenders because it's probably the worst job to take once you've invested in a law degree in terms of pay and stress. And until the funding situation changes to make that job more desirable, people will continue to suffer no matter how many lawyers there are.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> That is the absurdity here though, that people are being forced to build a bridge with no support. With more funding, we could provide an engineer for every bridge (and a lawyer for every case). Nobody should be forced to go through the legal system without an lawyer. Period. That's fair, but then you're also talking about a foundational change to the legal system. Just providing a real public defender to criminal defendants would dramatically reduce the number who take a plea, and then you're not just funding public defenders, you now need more prosecutors and police officers and judges because there are so many more cases where the defendant would have their day in court. That would explode the budget so much that the proposal would be politically impossible without some significant changes to the laws (e.g. end the war on drugs and do something more meaningful than we ever have before about poverty) to dramatically reduce the number of criminal defendants to begin with. Which is what we need -- but that's hardly just a matter of funding. It requires a huge political change. And it gets even worse for civil cases, because then you're going to want to fund the plaintiffs as well, otherwise you're back to the little guy being unrepresented. But then you're creating an incentive for plaintiffs to file thousands of frivolous lawsuits at taxpayer expense to try to find one that sticks, because who benefits is no longer aligned with who pays. Spending money reduces barriers which multiplies the amount of money you would have to spend. The only way to reduce the cost is to actually reduce the cost, i.e. reduce the number of man-hours it takes for a given legal process, not just change who is paying for it. > The number of lawyers has been growing in recent years. It's hard to claim standards are too high when more people are becoming lawyers than ever before. The claim isn't that the standards are preventing people from becoming attorneys, it's that they're raising costs on clients. If you over-regulate nuclear power, the problem isn't that then nobody wants to be a construction worker and build nuclear plants, it's that it makes nuclear cost more than fossil fuels like coal. And that, even when it does get used, it still costs more than it should because you're imposing rules whose cost exceeds their value.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> That is the absurdity here though, that people are being forced to build a bridge with no support. With more funding, we could provide an engineer for every bridge (and a lawyer for every case). Nobody should be forced to go through the legal system without an lawyer. Period. That's fair, but then you're also talking about a foundational change to the legal system. Just providing a real public defender to criminal defendants would dramatically reduce the number who take a plea, and then you're not just funding public defenders, you now need more prosecutors and police officers and judges because there are so many more cases where the defendant would have their day in court. That would explode the budget so much that the proposal would be politically impossible without some significant changes to the laws (e.g. end the war on drugs and do something more meaningful than we ever have before about poverty) to dramatically reduce the number of criminal defendants to begin with. Which is what we need -- but that's hardly just a matter of funding. It requires a huge political change. And it gets even worse for civil cases, because then you're going to want to fund the plaintiffs as well, otherwise you're back to the little guy being unrepresented. But then you're creating an incentive for plaintiffs to file thousands of frivolous lawsuits at taxpayer expense to try to find one that sticks, because who benefits is no longer aligned with who pays. Spending money reduces barriers which multiplies the amount of money you would have to spend. The only way to reduce the cost is to actually reduce the cost, i.e. reduce the number of man-hours it takes for a given legal process, not just change who is paying for it. > The number of lawyers has been growing in recent years. It's hard to claim standards are too high when more people are becoming lawyers than ever before. The claim isn't that the standards are preventing people from becoming attorneys, it's that they're raising costs on clients. If you over-regulate nuclear power, the problem isn't that then nobody wants to be a construction worker and build nuclear plants, it's that it makes nuclear cost more than fossil fuels like coal. And that, even when it does get used, it still costs more than it should because you're imposing rules whose cost exceeds their value.