9 ms·

It always warms my heart when I see people in the legal system get it right. I think slowly more and more people are entering that profession with a modicum of

It always warms my heart when I see people in the legal system get it right. I think slowly more and more people are entering that profession with a modicum of understanding of modern technology and how companies have been preying on the ignorance of the previous generation to bully their way to profitability. Note that the ignorance of the previous generation is not said as a slight. I'm sure my children's generation will be rolling their eyes at the things I say and do 20-30 years from now.

patrickod 16y ago
I wonder though how skewed our view of the legal system is? We rarely hear success stories like there where rulings are made in what is seen in favour of the greater good. Is that the result of either selective news reporting or consistent bad judgement alone or a mixture of both?
- ascendant 16y ago
  I have no actual basis to back up my statement that more technologically-savvy people are entering the legal profession as judges, but it will happen inevitably as each generation gives way to the next.
  - esoteriq 16y ago
    Ah, but by the time the tech-savvy law students become judges, they may not be tech-savvy anymore. This is only from my own experience at law school. There were relatively few truly tech-savvy folks out there. Almost everyone I knew still used Microsoft Word to type their lecture notes and outlines. (MS Word is terrible for this purpose - its internal formatting gets weird after a certain amount of bullet points.) I used special software for my lecture notes from a startup, and other students viewed me as "weird". I was also the first law student to use Dropbox to back up my work - seriously. (There were some other law students who were programmers before, but they are a different class of lawyers.) I'm not entirely sure that a legion of new lawyers who know how to use MS Word, computers and the internet are "technologically-savvy". More tech-savvy than old lawyers? absolutely. Compared to the rest of society? Eh.
- wtallis 16y ago
  I think there's pretty good coverage of the egregious attempts to abuse copyright and patent law and due process. I suspect that rulings in favor of limiting IP rights are truly rare, because most plaintiffs are smart enough to drop the case or settle rather than risk setting a precedent that would prevent them from being able to file a similar suit. (Case in point: The Sony v Hotz settlement)
- geebee 16y ago
  I agree, we don't always hear the good results. However, one thing that is rarely reported, and I'd like to know, is how much the defendants in this case had to spend on lawyers to get these trolls to go away. If they had to spend a lot of money, and didn't recover it, that's a loss. Plus, how much time loss and personal stress/unhappiness did this lawsuit cost them? If a court system drags you through the dirt and bleeds you dry to get a ruling that most people would agree is common sense, well, that's better than a bad ruling, but it's still a kind of fail.
- jacques_chester 16y ago
  Your view of everything is skewed. As a rule, almost everything works "well". Crime is rare, legal disputes are usually settled sensibly, politicians work hard etc. News is about the exceptions to the rule. "Everything Normal" does not make an interesting headline.
  - nitrogen 16y ago
    Yes, averaged across the entire population thinks work reasonably well, but among critical subsets of the population (like the technologically savvy) the picture isn't so rosy. For example, does almost everything work well in the realm of P2P mass lawsuits and college student settlement shakedowns? Are there millions of college students successfully defending themselves against shakedown letters not getting any news attention?
shasta 16y ago
It might warm your heart, but this is not a success story. It shouldn't take a judge noticing malicious intent to stop this kind of behavior. In fact, intent, malicious or otherwise, shouldn't matter. The system should be fixed so that filing any frivolous suit is an expected loss. Noticing and dealing with the worst offenders who are filling loads of frivolous claims is just a kludge fix.
- ascendant 16y ago
  You're right, and I feel this is a step in the right direction.
- jacques_chester 16y ago
  Many jurisdictions have torts for abuse of process or malicious prosecution. The trick is proving it. (IANAL, this isn't legal advice).
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    Just wondering, why did you bother adding the IANAL. You just don't want a fellow HNer to take the advice, run with it and possibly end up in trouble, or are you worried that someone will claim you as their lawyer, trace your IP and somehow end up messing with you?
    - jacques_chester 16y ago
      Lawyers enjoy "advocate's immunity", while I as a mere ex-law student do not. If someone relies on my advice I may be on the hook in the case that it is wrong. My only defence would be "but your honour, I pointed out that I am not a lawyer". It's tedious, but if there's one and only one thing that law taught me, it's a habit of professional paranoia.
      - rdtsc 16y ago
        Thanks for explaining. Interestingly do you know of any cases where someone had gotten in trouble giving such an advice over the internet? Also, you mentioned that as an ex-law student you must be careful? Is there any special status associated with ever studying law that makes you more susceptible to such charges rather than say, if you had studied history or math? > if there's one and only one thing that law taught me, it's a habit of professional paranoia. You might make a good security researcher then ;-)

patrickod 16y ago

I wonder though how skewed our view of the legal system is? We rarely hear success stories like there where rulings are made in what is seen in favour of the greater good. Is that the result of either selective news reporting or consistent bad judgement alone or a mixture of both?

ascendant 16y ago
I have no actual basis to back up my statement that more technologically-savvy people are entering the legal profession as judges, but it will happen inevitably as each generation gives way to the next.
- esoteriq 16y ago
  Ah, but by the time the tech-savvy law students become judges, they may not be tech-savvy anymore. This is only from my own experience at law school. There were relatively few truly tech-savvy folks out there. Almost everyone I knew still used Microsoft Word to type their lecture notes and outlines. (MS Word is terrible for this purpose - its internal formatting gets weird after a certain amount of bullet points.) I used special software for my lecture notes from a startup, and other students viewed me as "weird". I was also the first law student to use Dropbox to back up my work - seriously. (There were some other law students who were programmers before, but they are a different class of lawyers.) I'm not entirely sure that a legion of new lawyers who know how to use MS Word, computers and the internet are "technologically-savvy". More tech-savvy than old lawyers? absolutely. Compared to the rest of society? Eh.
wtallis 16y ago
I think there's pretty good coverage of the egregious attempts to abuse copyright and patent law and due process. I suspect that rulings in favor of limiting IP rights are truly rare, because most plaintiffs are smart enough to drop the case or settle rather than risk setting a precedent that would prevent them from being able to file a similar suit. (Case in point: The Sony v Hotz settlement)
geebee 16y ago
I agree, we don't always hear the good results. However, one thing that is rarely reported, and I'd like to know, is how much the defendants in this case had to spend on lawyers to get these trolls to go away. If they had to spend a lot of money, and didn't recover it, that's a loss. Plus, how much time loss and personal stress/unhappiness did this lawsuit cost them? If a court system drags you through the dirt and bleeds you dry to get a ruling that most people would agree is common sense, well, that's better than a bad ruling, but it's still a kind of fail.
jacques_chester 16y ago
Your view of everything is skewed. As a rule, almost everything works "well". Crime is rare, legal disputes are usually settled sensibly, politicians work hard etc. News is about the exceptions to the rule. "Everything Normal" does not make an interesting headline.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  Yes, averaged across the entire population thinks work reasonably well, but among critical subsets of the population (like the technologically savvy) the picture isn't so rosy. For example, does almost everything work well in the realm of P2P mass lawsuits and college student settlement shakedowns? Are there millions of college students successfully defending themselves against shakedown letters not getting any news attention?

shasta 16y ago

It might warm your heart, but this is not a success story. It shouldn't take a judge noticing malicious intent to stop this kind of behavior. In fact, intent, malicious or otherwise, shouldn't matter. The system should be fixed so that filing any frivolous suit is an expected loss. Noticing and dealing with the worst offenders who are filling loads of frivolous claims is just a kludge fix.

ascendant 16y ago
You're right, and I feel this is a step in the right direction.
jacques_chester 16y ago
Many jurisdictions have torts for abuse of process or malicious prosecution. The trick is proving it. (IANAL, this isn't legal advice).
- rdtsc 16y ago
  Just wondering, why did you bother adding the IANAL. You just don't want a fellow HNer to take the advice, run with it and possibly end up in trouble, or are you worried that someone will claim you as their lawyer, trace your IP and somehow end up messing with you?
  - jacques_chester 16y ago
    Lawyers enjoy "advocate's immunity", while I as a mere ex-law student do not. If someone relies on my advice I may be on the hook in the case that it is wrong. My only defence would be "but your honour, I pointed out that I am not a lawyer". It's tedious, but if there's one and only one thing that law taught me, it's a habit of professional paranoia.
    - rdtsc 16y ago
      Thanks for explaining. Interestingly do you know of any cases where someone had gotten in trouble giving such an advice over the internet? Also, you mentioned that as an ex-law student you must be careful? Is there any special status associated with ever studying law that makes you more susceptible to such charges rather than say, if you had studied history or math? > if there's one and only one thing that law taught me, it's a habit of professional paranoia. You might make a good security researcher then ;-)