10 ms·

These are interesting scenarios, but let's not forget that the rules are only binding under the threat of being caught and punished. They aren't like the laws

by parsimo2010 6y ago

These are interesting scenarios, but let's not forget that the rules are only binding under the threat of being caught and punished. They aren't like the laws of physics. So if a lawyer isn't supposed to engage in trickery, they might do so anyway, especially if they think they can get away with it and their client happens to be a rich criminal who pays them extra to do shady stuff. Source: Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity.

umvi 6y ago
Yeah, I didn't realize how downright nefarious lawyers can be until I read "Bad Blood" and thought to myself "How is what David Boies does to help Theranos legal? This seems extremely unethical at the very least, and highly illegal at most"
- spaetzleesser 6y ago
  Totally agree about Boies. This behavior should have consequences. He behaved like a mafia hitman who doesn’t care who he is bringing down as long as the money keeps flowing. Basically he is a psychopath with no ethics.
- nmfisher 6y ago
  As someone who (in an earlier life) started off in the profession, here's a dirty little secret - I'd say around 2/3 of lawyers get by on pure bluff, bluster and intimidation. I'm talking shouting on phone calls, slamming fists on tables, threatening letters, and so on. Once you have the slightest clue about the law, it's easy to just laugh it off. The problem is, most people don't know any better, so these tactics are incredibly effective a lot of the time. However, you do get a truly lethal combination when you combine an asshole lawyer with a well-funded client. That's not because it's some highly intelligent, sophisticated legal team who can craft superior legal arguments. Rather, it's because they can simply brute-force their way through by outspending you. It doesn't matter how legally "right" you are if you're not willing/able to spend the money in court to prove it. A lot of people take advantage of that, including the asshole lawyer (who, of course, profits from it).
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    > As someone who (in an earlier life) started off in the profession, here's a dirty little secret - I'd say around 2/3 of lawyers get by on pure bluff, bluster and intimidation. I'm talking shouting on phone calls, slamming fists on tables, threatening letters, and so on. "If you have the facts on your side, you pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, you pound the law. If you don't have facts or law on your side, you pound the table"
rayiner 6y ago
There are a number of structural mechanisms that make “getting away with it” difficult. First, the process is adversarial—there is another side with huge incentives to discover any fabrication. Second, there is an ethical duty to reveal misconduct in your knowledge, under punishment of penalties to yourself. It’s not enough for a rich criminal to pay off a lawyer; they have to pay off everyone else who might know. Third, ethics proceedings can destroy a person’s entire livelihood, and the standard is not “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” but “more likely than not.” And there’s no statute of limitations—misconduct can come back to bite you decades later.
- CobrastanJorji 6y ago
  What is this "destroy a person's entire livelihood" thing? For prosecutorial misconduct, it's nearly impossible to sue the prosecutor. They have the same qualified immunity police officers enjoy, and incidents of state bars punishing prosecutors for misconduct are nearly nonexistent.
- woofie11 6y ago
  Have you ever tried filing a misconduct compliant with a bar association? You'll get just about as far as a police violence compliant with the local PD. The bar is there to serve the lawyers, like any guild or union. For the most part, there are no checks on lawyer ethics.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    I've actually served on the ethics committee for the bar association. We discipline lawyers all the time. The bar does not exist to serve lawyers, it exists to regulate them.
    - justinclift 6y ago
      From the perspective of a lay person, it doesn't to be effective in doing so. eg. Places like Prenda Law being able to operate openly for years before being shut down, etc.
daniel-thompson 6y ago
> Source: Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity. Somewhat off-topic, but here's a mind-boggling example of a lawyer's lack of integrity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Murphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Murphy
- shakna 6y ago
  It doesn't even need to be due to "poor" intentions, either. For example, a lawyer who thought she was doing the right thing and protecting many people has caused endless problems, both legal and moral, and likely ended up protecting (by tainting the case against) the very people she sought to bring to justice. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Gobbo#Lawyer_X_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Gobbo#Lawyer_X_scandal
  - vkou 6y ago
    Given that she became an informant after the police gave her the choice of becoming a snitch, or getting the book thrown at her, I don't think she had any illusions about whether or not she was a scumbag.
- jldugger 6y ago
  Is that the best you can do? One can almost argue if you have been disbarred, you are no longer a lawyer. Though I guess that didn't stop the Air Force from hiring the guy to be a lawyer, then praising and promoting him multiple times. Here's a more recent and IMO better one: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/28/former-apple-lawyer-accused-of-insider-trading-says-charges-unconstitutional https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/28/former-apple-lawy... > Former Apple lawyer Gene Levoff, who oversaw the company's Insider Trading Policy as corporate secretary and senior director of corporate law, was on Thursday indicted for insider trading and faces a maximum penalty of 120 years in prison. > Ironically, Levoff was in charge of enforcing the blackout period as part of Apple's wider trading policy and would sometimes conduct illicit trades after notifying others of the restrictions.
  - 6y ago
nordsieck 6y ago
> Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity. While it's true that some lawyers are unethical some of the time, it seems highly unlikely that lawyers are unethical as often as their reputation suggests. A much more likely explanation is: 1. The complexity of the law. 2. The incongruity between the law and many people's ethical codes. 3. The skill gradient that exists among lawyers, as it does in any profession. 4. The limited resources afforded to public defenders. 5. The limited success pro se litigants typically have.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  And TV. Real life lawyering isn’t nearly interesting enough so writers have to zhush it up by having lawyer characters operate in the grey area or completely cross the line as a matter of course. It’s more exciting that way!
  - woofie11 6y ago
    The way real lawyers are unethical and the way TV lawyers are unethical is completely different. Real lawyers will mostly do things like inflate hours, inflate conflicts, exaggerate expected outcomes, and generally blow things up so as to maximize billable hours rather than acting in the interests of their client. That doesn't make good TV either.
- woofie11 6y ago
  I know a lot of lawyers. Most lawyers in law firms are just as unethical just as often as their reputation suggests. There are high-integrity lawyers out there, and if you find one, cling onto them. They're out there, but they're rare. A much more likely explanation are misaligned incentive structures, combined with a protective guild-like bar organization which lawyers belong to.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    Any professional in a competitive field fakes immense selective pressure to be unethical. It doesn't matter how honest one is, the system will select for the cheater. This goes for lawyers, bicyclists, tradespeople, anywhere where the client or victims of externalities can't verify the quality of the work and hold them accountable.
airstrike 6y ago
> Source: Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity. Calling that "source" is a bit of a stretch, no? More like "hypothesis"
ROARosen 6y ago
>These are interesting scenarios, but let's not forget that the rules are only binding under the threat of being caught and punished This reasoning can be used for anything ranging from speeding to stealing to even murder. Obviously the article was examining the intersection between "the law as written" and the ethics surrounding this issue.
harlanji 6y ago
I’m in this very situation. OpenTable vs. Iverson, 4/20/2020, Santa Clara. It’s been a saga of massaging the optics, very interesting to see the 3 requests evolve. #1 I was never served, #2 they bluffed and didn’t show up, #3 was utter slander and filed in a new county (SC, first 2 in SF proper over the course of a year). Head screw, it hurts to try to recall it all. It’s also extremely offensive to read. It’s put a serious mark on me, both credibility and also the private investigator(s) following me everywhere, hence being homeless and isolated. The original issue was an improper firing (where UI was granted, and it was improper compared to their own training). Biz@harlanji.com. I have the latter 2/3 of the filings, and my response that I couldn’t file and a BAR complaint written (I wasn’t seved #1 but #2 references it).
kovac 6y ago
I once asked a high-school acquaintance of mine who had just graduated with a law degree, if she knew someone committed a violent crime, if she would still represent that person in court. Her answer was that even a violent criminal has a right for a fair trial. That sounded to me as evasive as it was rehearsed. I reckoned that this is something they have been taught/justified in law school.
- tuukkah 6y ago
  Isn't that the right answer though?
  - kovac 6y ago
    Yeah it is. But what I was more interested in is what an individual lawyer might be thinking in that scenario. What I asked was a more specific question. Place where I live in, first degree murder carries death penalty. So, I was wondering what a lawyer would do/think if she knew for certain that her client committed an act that qualifies as first degree murder (e.g. He confessed to her). Because then as far as the justice system concerned, the outcome of a fair trial would be death penalty and she as the defendant would be trying to circumvent that. Not sure why I'm down voted, I genuinely asked her out of curiosity.
- fouc 6y ago
  The ethics behind this is has been deeply studied and debated, and the "right to representation" is an important right. The system is based on checks and balances, and there's no certainty the violent criminal is guilty for the specific crime they're being charged with. This is likely related to the adversarial nature of the courts, prosecutors vs defenders. Defenders ethically need to defend equally, basic game theory, aka Prisoner's Dilemma.
- implements 6y ago
  Have a read of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cab-rank_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cab-rank_rule In a nutshell, English barristers must accept cases from anyone regardless of their circumstances or character otherwise “an unpopular person might not get legal representation; barristers who acted for them might be criticised for doing so”. “Justice” is the result of the process by which trials are fair - is one way of looking at it. Contrasted with the view that once we know who the bad people are (how?) guilt is presumed and summary punishment is all they’re entitled to.
ta1234567890 6y ago
> Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity. Some anecdotes: - A company I started, hired a big-brand SV legal firm, super expensive. We thought they would be great. But we were so little to them, it was sometimes even hard to get a timely response. In the end we stopped using them, but not before we signed a bunch of documents they reviewed and told us were fine to sign, when in reality those contracts left us fatally exposed (and were in great part responsible for the downfall of the company later). - Had a complaint filed against me personally earlier this year. The complaint has some truths twisted to paint a mostly false story, but it also has plenty of lies and omissions. The lawyer(s) that wrote the complaint knew what they were doing, yet no one is ever going to get punished for it. - Looking for lawyers to defend the case (and in previous experiences), I realized that most lawyers have certain formulas or patterns they follow for specific types of situations that they already know how to address, if you don't fall into those, then they'll either pretty much fail at the job, not do what they actually should do (sometimes even if you ask them directly), or just refuse you as a client. It is very hard to find a lawyer that will actually take the time to really listen to you, understand your story/situation and then work on a personalized strategy/solution. I think that any lawyer that intentionally mis-represents stuff in their work, or tries to shoehorn their clients into their formulas, or just half-asses their job, are seriously lacking in integrity. And by my experience, this seems to be the case for 50%+ of lawyers. A lot of them will probably do a ton of damage both to their clients and their counterparties, and they will never be held responsible.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  I do not want to dismiss what you are saying (in fact I find it extremely interesting) but don't 80%+ of people in all professions (or even out in society) just suck? I am more surprised that you consider 50% to be the minimum of bad lawyers rather than a higher percentage.
  - ikeboy 6y ago
    80% of doctors don't suck. It's not that lawyers suck, per se. It's that you're dealing with an adversary, and if you get a 50th percentile lawyer to go against a 90th percentile lawyer, well, you could still win if you've got a good case, but it's certainly not as likely as the reverse. In many cases you get what you pay for.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
Same could be said for software developers. While I am aware of the audience here, I'm not trolling. There is a remarkable similarity between the "helplessness/vulnerability", for lack of a better term, of clients using a lawyer and the helplessness/vulnerability of users in using software authored by someone else (not to mention clients who hire software developers to write software for them). In each case, the client/user is required to trust the lawyer/developer. One key difference is an issue sometimes discussed on HN:- there's no licensing requirement for developers. Lawyers have to be licensed, and the licensing requirements include ethical obligations, violations of which can result in losing one's license. While this system in practice may have some shortcomings, software developers do not have anything equivalent. There are states in the US where lawyers are disbarred every month, but I am not aware of any software developer who has been banned by a regulatory body from writing software for use by others. Both lawyers and developers are probably subject to negative stigmas as as a result of the "bad apples". Not all are unethical.
- codesections 6y ago
  > Same could be said for software developers. I am licensed attorney and a full-time software developer and I agree 100% - there are remarkable similarities. (And there are strong parallels between big tech and biglaw, especially for junior devs/associates, but that's a bit of a tangent)
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    > (And there are strong parallels between big tech and biglaw, especially for junior devs/associates, but that's a bit of a tangent) Are there parallels? I mean to some degree all large, well paying orgs are going to have similarities, but a plucky undergrad coming out of CalTech will get $130k+ at a FAANGM or orgs that pay roughly in that continuum, and be able to jump to all sorts of other options, while most newly minted lawyers are looking at average salaries of $70-$80k USD while having huge law school debt on top of undergrad debt. This means ruthless wageslavery at BigLaw until you make partner or you pay off enough of that debt to walk. As a dude with a PoliSci degree and a minor in IT, I did a good hard look at the cost benefits when I graduated... and went IT. As the bad tattoo says: "no regurts".
AmericanChopper 6y ago
If you think defence lawyers are tricky, wait until you find out about prosecutors...

umvi 6y ago

Yeah, I didn't realize how downright nefarious lawyers can be until I read "Bad Blood" and thought to myself "How is what David Boies does to help Theranos legal? This seems extremely unethical at the very least, and highly illegal at most"

spaetzleesser 6y ago
Totally agree about Boies. This behavior should have consequences. He behaved like a mafia hitman who doesn’t care who he is bringing down as long as the money keeps flowing. Basically he is a psychopath with no ethics.
nmfisher 6y ago
As someone who (in an earlier life) started off in the profession, here's a dirty little secret - I'd say around 2/3 of lawyers get by on pure bluff, bluster and intimidation. I'm talking shouting on phone calls, slamming fists on tables, threatening letters, and so on. Once you have the slightest clue about the law, it's easy to just laugh it off. The problem is, most people don't know any better, so these tactics are incredibly effective a lot of the time. However, you do get a truly lethal combination when you combine an asshole lawyer with a well-funded client. That's not because it's some highly intelligent, sophisticated legal team who can craft superior legal arguments. Rather, it's because they can simply brute-force their way through by outspending you. It doesn't matter how legally "right" you are if you're not willing/able to spend the money in court to prove it. A lot of people take advantage of that, including the asshole lawyer (who, of course, profits from it).
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > As someone who (in an earlier life) started off in the profession, here's a dirty little secret - I'd say around 2/3 of lawyers get by on pure bluff, bluster and intimidation. I'm talking shouting on phone calls, slamming fists on tables, threatening letters, and so on. "If you have the facts on your side, you pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, you pound the law. If you don't have facts or law on your side, you pound the table"

rayiner 6y ago

There are a number of structural mechanisms that make “getting away with it” difficult. First, the process is adversarial—there is another side with huge incentives to discover any fabrication. Second, there is an ethical duty to reveal misconduct in your knowledge, under punishment of penalties to yourself. It’s not enough for a rich criminal to pay off a lawyer; they have to pay off everyone else who might know. Third, ethics proceedings can destroy a person’s entire livelihood, and the standard is not “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” but “more likely than not.” And there’s no statute of limitations—misconduct can come back to bite you decades later.

CobrastanJorji 6y ago
What is this "destroy a person's entire livelihood" thing? For prosecutorial misconduct, it's nearly impossible to sue the prosecutor. They have the same qualified immunity police officers enjoy, and incidents of state bars punishing prosecutors for misconduct are nearly nonexistent.
woofie11 6y ago
Have you ever tried filing a misconduct compliant with a bar association? You'll get just about as far as a police violence compliant with the local PD. The bar is there to serve the lawyers, like any guild or union. For the most part, there are no checks on lawyer ethics.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  I've actually served on the ethics committee for the bar association. We discipline lawyers all the time. The bar does not exist to serve lawyers, it exists to regulate them.
  - justinclift 6y ago
    From the perspective of a lay person, it doesn't to be effective in doing so. eg. Places like Prenda Law being able to operate openly for years before being shut down, etc.

daniel-thompson 6y ago

> Source: Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity. Somewhat off-topic, but here's a mind-boggling example of a lawyer's lack of integrity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Murphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Murphy

shakna 6y ago
It doesn't even need to be due to "poor" intentions, either. For example, a lawyer who thought she was doing the right thing and protecting many people has caused endless problems, both legal and moral, and likely ended up protecting (by tainting the case against) the very people she sought to bring to justice. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Gobbo#Lawyer_X_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicola_Gobbo#Lawyer_X_scandal
- vkou 6y ago
  Given that she became an informant after the police gave her the choice of becoming a snitch, or getting the book thrown at her, I don't think she had any illusions about whether or not she was a scumbag.
jldugger 6y ago
Is that the best you can do? One can almost argue if you have been disbarred, you are no longer a lawyer. Though I guess that didn't stop the Air Force from hiring the guy to be a lawyer, then praising and promoting him multiple times. Here's a more recent and IMO better one: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/28/former-apple-lawyer-accused-of-insider-trading-says-charges-unconstitutional https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/28/former-apple-lawy... > Former Apple lawyer Gene Levoff, who oversaw the company's Insider Trading Policy as corporate secretary and senior director of corporate law, was on Thursday indicted for insider trading and faces a maximum penalty of 120 years in prison. > Ironically, Levoff was in charge of enforcing the blackout period as part of Apple's wider trading policy and would sometimes conduct illicit trades after notifying others of the restrictions.
- 6y ago

nordsieck 6y ago

> Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity. While it's true that some lawyers are unethical some of the time, it seems highly unlikely that lawyers are unethical as often as their reputation suggests. A much more likely explanation is: 1. The complexity of the law. 2. The incongruity between the law and many people's ethical codes. 3. The skill gradient that exists among lawyers, as it does in any profession. 4. The limited resources afforded to public defenders. 5. The limited success pro se litigants typically have.

elliekelly 6y ago
And TV. Real life lawyering isn’t nearly interesting enough so writers have to zhush it up by having lawyer characters operate in the grey area or completely cross the line as a matter of course. It’s more exciting that way!
- woofie11 6y ago
  The way real lawyers are unethical and the way TV lawyers are unethical is completely different. Real lawyers will mostly do things like inflate hours, inflate conflicts, exaggerate expected outcomes, and generally blow things up so as to maximize billable hours rather than acting in the interests of their client. That doesn't make good TV either.
woofie11 6y ago
I know a lot of lawyers. Most lawyers in law firms are just as unethical just as often as their reputation suggests. There are high-integrity lawyers out there, and if you find one, cling onto them. They're out there, but they're rare. A much more likely explanation are misaligned incentive structures, combined with a protective guild-like bar organization which lawyers belong to.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  Any professional in a competitive field fakes immense selective pressure to be unethical. It doesn't matter how honest one is, the system will select for the cheater. This goes for lawyers, bicyclists, tradespeople, anywhere where the client or victims of externalities can't verify the quality of the work and hold them accountable.

airstrike 6y ago

> Source: Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity. Calling that "source" is a bit of a stretch, no? More like "hypothesis"

ROARosen 6y ago

>These are interesting scenarios, but let's not forget that the rules are only binding under the threat of being caught and punished This reasoning can be used for anything ranging from speeding to stealing to even murder. Obviously the article was examining the intersection between "the law as written" and the ethics surrounding this issue.

harlanji 6y ago

I’m in this very situation. OpenTable vs. Iverson, 4/20/2020, Santa Clara. It’s been a saga of massaging the optics, very interesting to see the 3 requests evolve. #1 I was never served, #2 they bluffed and didn’t show up, #3 was utter slander and filed in a new county (SC, first 2 in SF proper over the course of a year). Head screw, it hurts to try to recall it all. It’s also extremely offensive to read. It’s put a serious mark on me, both credibility and also the private investigator(s) following me everywhere, hence being homeless and isolated. The original issue was an improper firing (where UI was granted, and it was improper compared to their own training). Biz@harlanji.com. I have the latter 2/3 of the filings, and my response that I couldn’t file and a BAR complaint written (I wasn’t seved #1 but #2 references it).

kovac 6y ago

I once asked a high-school acquaintance of mine who had just graduated with a law degree, if she knew someone committed a violent crime, if she would still represent that person in court. Her answer was that even a violent criminal has a right for a fair trial. That sounded to me as evasive as it was rehearsed. I reckoned that this is something they have been taught/justified in law school.

tuukkah 6y ago
Isn't that the right answer though?
- kovac 6y ago
  Yeah it is. But what I was more interested in is what an individual lawyer might be thinking in that scenario. What I asked was a more specific question. Place where I live in, first degree murder carries death penalty. So, I was wondering what a lawyer would do/think if she knew for certain that her client committed an act that qualifies as first degree murder (e.g. He confessed to her). Because then as far as the justice system concerned, the outcome of a fair trial would be death penalty and she as the defendant would be trying to circumvent that. Not sure why I'm down voted, I genuinely asked her out of curiosity.
fouc 6y ago
The ethics behind this is has been deeply studied and debated, and the "right to representation" is an important right. The system is based on checks and balances, and there's no certainty the violent criminal is guilty for the specific crime they're being charged with. This is likely related to the adversarial nature of the courts, prosecutors vs defenders. Defenders ethically need to defend equally, basic game theory, aka Prisoner's Dilemma.
implements 6y ago
Have a read of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cab-rank_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cab-rank_rule In a nutshell, English barristers must accept cases from anyone regardless of their circumstances or character otherwise “an unpopular person might not get legal representation; barristers who acted for them might be criticised for doing so”. “Justice” is the result of the process by which trials are fair - is one way of looking at it. Contrasted with the view that once we know who the bad people are (how?) guilt is presumed and summary punishment is all they’re entitled to.

ta1234567890 6y ago

> Lawyers wouldn't have the reputation they do if all the members of the club had integrity. Some anecdotes: - A company I started, hired a big-brand SV legal firm, super expensive. We thought they would be great. But we were so little to them, it was sometimes even hard to get a timely response. In the end we stopped using them, but not before we signed a bunch of documents they reviewed and told us were fine to sign, when in reality those contracts left us fatally exposed (and were in great part responsible for the downfall of the company later). - Had a complaint filed against me personally earlier this year. The complaint has some truths twisted to paint a mostly false story, but it also has plenty of lies and omissions. The lawyer(s) that wrote the complaint knew what they were doing, yet no one is ever going to get punished for it. - Looking for lawyers to defend the case (and in previous experiences), I realized that most lawyers have certain formulas or patterns they follow for specific types of situations that they already know how to address, if you don't fall into those, then they'll either pretty much fail at the job, not do what they actually should do (sometimes even if you ask them directly), or just refuse you as a client. It is very hard to find a lawyer that will actually take the time to really listen to you, understand your story/situation and then work on a personalized strategy/solution. I think that any lawyer that intentionally mis-represents stuff in their work, or tries to shoehorn their clients into their formulas, or just half-asses their job, are seriously lacking in integrity. And by my experience, this seems to be the case for 50%+ of lawyers. A lot of them will probably do a ton of damage both to their clients and their counterparties, and they will never be held responsible.

dependenttypes 6y ago
I do not want to dismiss what you are saying (in fact I find it extremely interesting) but don't 80%+ of people in all professions (or even out in society) just suck? I am more surprised that you consider 50% to be the minimum of bad lawyers rather than a higher percentage.
- ikeboy 6y ago
  80% of doctors don't suck. It's not that lawyers suck, per se. It's that you're dealing with an adversary, and if you get a 50th percentile lawyer to go against a 90th percentile lawyer, well, you could still win if you've got a good case, but it's certainly not as likely as the reverse. In many cases you get what you pay for.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

Same could be said for software developers. While I am aware of the audience here, I'm not trolling. There is a remarkable similarity between the "helplessness/vulnerability", for lack of a better term, of clients using a lawyer and the helplessness/vulnerability of users in using software authored by someone else (not to mention clients who hire software developers to write software for them). In each case, the client/user is required to trust the lawyer/developer. One key difference is an issue sometimes discussed on HN:- there's no licensing requirement for developers. Lawyers have to be licensed, and the licensing requirements include ethical obligations, violations of which can result in losing one's license. While this system in practice may have some shortcomings, software developers do not have anything equivalent. There are states in the US where lawyers are disbarred every month, but I am not aware of any software developer who has been banned by a regulatory body from writing software for use by others. Both lawyers and developers are probably subject to negative stigmas as as a result of the "bad apples". Not all are unethical.

codesections 6y ago
> Same could be said for software developers. I am licensed attorney and a full-time software developer and I agree 100% - there are remarkable similarities. (And there are strong parallels between big tech and biglaw, especially for junior devs/associates, but that's a bit of a tangent)
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > (And there are strong parallels between big tech and biglaw, especially for junior devs/associates, but that's a bit of a tangent) Are there parallels? I mean to some degree all large, well paying orgs are going to have similarities, but a plucky undergrad coming out of CalTech will get $130k+ at a FAANGM or orgs that pay roughly in that continuum, and be able to jump to all sorts of other options, while most newly minted lawyers are looking at average salaries of $70-$80k USD while having huge law school debt on top of undergrad debt. This means ruthless wageslavery at BigLaw until you make partner or you pay off enough of that debt to walk. As a dude with a PoliSci degree and a minor in IT, I did a good hard look at the cost benefits when I graduated... and went IT. As the bad tattoo says: "no regurts".

AmericanChopper 6y ago

If you think defence lawyers are tricky, wait until you find out about prosecutors...