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Law is just as technical as the others. Most law isn't really about constructing or deconstructing arguments, it's about filling out pages and pages of very bor

Law is just as technical as the others. Most law isn't really about constructing or deconstructing arguments, it's about filling out pages and pages of very boring but very necessary documentation. Lawyers are often just in the business of contracts and other such formulaic (but technical) stuff. Trial law, or similar, is also as much about following rules as anything else. Anyone can construct an argument, and a lot of people can construct better arguments than a lawyer, but almost nobody can do it in the way that's necessary for it to actually work.

amelius 7y ago
Isn't this all backwards then? If a person can't defend themselves then how can a person know if they did something wrong in the first place? To me it sounds like an entire profession created a monopoly on what they are doing to artificially keep out "amateurs".
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  I suspect it is backwards including the source of the doctrines. Precedent while it may have a function in consistency is just gussied up rationalizations essentially. Representatives in matters of disputes would always have a purpose but only a codified law with its complexities would create lawyers. They like doctors also occupy the "high stakes license" version. Combined with incompetence of council as a reason for appeal it is easy to see why the state and others would have a valid interest in quality standards. Small stakes courts are often still done lawyerless for instance.
clairity 7y ago
i worded that poorly (see, that's why i'm not a lawyer! =). i was intending to differentiate (breadth of) skills versus knowledge. lawyerly technical skills, as i see it, is the different ways of constructing, destructing, and rebutting arguments, along with presentational skills (verbal and written) and related strategies. so i see filling out forms and drawing up contracts as a form of argumentation--in that case, the preemption of common and likely future arguments. so then, lawyerly technical skills are relatively enumerable. on the other hand, law has a vast corpus of knowledge (e.g., precedent) that no one person can master in a lifetime. in contrast, the technical skills to imagine and create physical (and virtual) objects, or to understand and modify biological systems, are vast and relatively innumerable (as is what's known and unknown in those realms). that's not to say anything about the intelligence or creativity of practitioners of any of these professions, as they all benefit from those qualities.

amelius 7y ago

Isn't this all backwards then? If a person can't defend themselves then how can a person know if they did something wrong in the first place? To me it sounds like an entire profession created a monopoly on what they are doing to artificially keep out "amateurs".

Nasrudith 7y ago
I suspect it is backwards including the source of the doctrines. Precedent while it may have a function in consistency is just gussied up rationalizations essentially. Representatives in matters of disputes would always have a purpose but only a codified law with its complexities would create lawyers. They like doctors also occupy the "high stakes license" version. Combined with incompetence of council as a reason for appeal it is easy to see why the state and others would have a valid interest in quality standards. Small stakes courts are often still done lawyerless for instance.

clairity 7y ago

i worded that poorly (see, that's why i'm not a lawyer! =). i was intending to differentiate (breadth of) skills versus knowledge. lawyerly technical skills, as i see it, is the different ways of constructing, destructing, and rebutting arguments, along with presentational skills (verbal and written) and related strategies. so i see filling out forms and drawing up contracts as a form of argumentation--in that case, the preemption of common and likely future arguments. so then, lawyerly technical skills are relatively enumerable. on the other hand, law has a vast corpus of knowledge (e.g., precedent) that no one person can master in a lifetime. in contrast, the technical skills to imagine and create physical (and virtual) objects, or to understand and modify biological systems, are vast and relatively innumerable (as is what's known and unknown in those realms). that's not to say anything about the intelligence or creativity of practitioners of any of these professions, as they all benefit from those qualities.