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Lack of resourcing is absolutely costing us particularly IT. The lack of free access to proceedings data, the manual filling and processing without ease of acce

Lack of resourcing is absolutely costing us particularly IT. The lack of free access to proceedings data, the manual filling and processing without ease of access . The lack of access to lawyers and judges alike make them expensive. This is by design in all professions which requires memberships in addition to a degree like lawyers and accountants as compared to engineers. If banks still did banking on ledger books only the rich will be banked as it was until recent times. To scale your ability to serve is closly related to cost of service. It is applicable whether it is SaaS or rocket science or legal system

salawat 6y ago
Yes... but also no. Again, the problem comes in in the fundamentals of velocity of information propagation, of which only half is open to unrestricted scalability. Namely, documents can be propagated at the speed of light. Understanding cannot. You can put every document exactly where I need it as soon as it is accessible, but unless I've had enough immersion in the jargon and specific ways of life of the profession, I'm going to need time to absorb and reckon what to do with it, and where to go next. Even if I do know what to look for, good luck hitting up any database of well cross-referenced case law without paying an exorbitant fee due to the nature of the returns of the profession, and the essentially captive audience to it. Most of those data sources areas fundamental to law as Machinery's Handbook to Machining, yet its locked up behind more imposing barriers to entry than Fort Knox; fiscal, temporal, and cultural. Short of a periodic collapse and simplification of case law such that the entire field can become more accessible so something less than a Guild/Cartel of highly exclusive barristers, I'm not seeing a fundamental opportunity to change things for the better.
- salawat 6y ago
  To flesh out my thoughts, there are publicly accessible law libraries you can go to for working through the up to date case law by checking the registers and what not, but from my understanding this is a far slower process than using the tools most practicing attorneys pay rather large recurring access fees to. If there is a lawyer about, feel free to correct me, but I believe Westlaw is one, LexisNexis is another I think? It's been a while since I was deep in this vertical of research. What I do remember is that the difference in efficiency between someone who does have access to one of those systems vs. Someone who doesn't is essentially the difference between someone armed with Google Case Law Edition vs. someone working out of a card catalog. You can get an order of magnitude higher discoverability leading to potential alternate avenues for legal construction with one over the other. You can also get an idea of what approach any defense or counterpart might make by researching what your opponent would want since you're both working out of the same b o st of case law. If you're just looking to do one case and be done, the law library may work. If you're in court with any regularity, the rest of the profession has made your decision for you, and it's time to pony up for access to the big boy's toolset.
  - manquer 6y ago
    Law that most people need is not number theory or quantam mechanics that it has to be super complicated to understand. The social contract I have with society is not I that follow arbitrary rules I don't understand in return for the benefits the society gives me. A breonna taylor situation would not be legal in any sane society yet it is today, because the people running the judicial system make laws inaccessible and self protecting. Complicated laws and regulations need enforcement and lawyers . You legalize alcohol, FBI needs weed laws and civil rights to keep their jobs. You legalize weed , they need something else. Today the DoJ will charge you by the page to get access to legal documents. What else are we paying tax for !! If it is too complicated for only professionals to understand then needs to be simplified. You are right we need fundamental simplication and radical change . From the Justinian times codification and simplification of law has always been a mark of good civilizations. Asoka put stone pillars so people can know the law. There are countless examples. If ten commandments needed lawyers it would never have worked . It will only happen if we doing something about it .

salawat 6y ago

Yes... but also no. Again, the problem comes in in the fundamentals of velocity of information propagation, of which only half is open to unrestricted scalability. Namely, documents can be propagated at the speed of light. Understanding cannot. You can put every document exactly where I need it as soon as it is accessible, but unless I've had enough immersion in the jargon and specific ways of life of the profession, I'm going to need time to absorb and reckon what to do with it, and where to go next. Even if I do know what to look for, good luck hitting up any database of well cross-referenced case law without paying an exorbitant fee due to the nature of the returns of the profession, and the essentially captive audience to it. Most of those data sources areas fundamental to law as Machinery's Handbook to Machining, yet its locked up behind more imposing barriers to entry than Fort Knox; fiscal, temporal, and cultural. Short of a periodic collapse and simplification of case law such that the entire field can become more accessible so something less than a Guild/Cartel of highly exclusive barristers, I'm not seeing a fundamental opportunity to change things for the better.

salawat 6y ago
To flesh out my thoughts, there are publicly accessible law libraries you can go to for working through the up to date case law by checking the registers and what not, but from my understanding this is a far slower process than using the tools most practicing attorneys pay rather large recurring access fees to. If there is a lawyer about, feel free to correct me, but I believe Westlaw is one, LexisNexis is another I think? It's been a while since I was deep in this vertical of research. What I do remember is that the difference in efficiency between someone who does have access to one of those systems vs. Someone who doesn't is essentially the difference between someone armed with Google Case Law Edition vs. someone working out of a card catalog. You can get an order of magnitude higher discoverability leading to potential alternate avenues for legal construction with one over the other. You can also get an idea of what approach any defense or counterpart might make by researching what your opponent would want since you're both working out of the same b o st of case law. If you're just looking to do one case and be done, the law library may work. If you're in court with any regularity, the rest of the profession has made your decision for you, and it's time to pony up for access to the big boy's toolset.
- manquer 6y ago
  Law that most people need is not number theory or quantam mechanics that it has to be super complicated to understand. The social contract I have with society is not I that follow arbitrary rules I don't understand in return for the benefits the society gives me. A breonna taylor situation would not be legal in any sane society yet it is today, because the people running the judicial system make laws inaccessible and self protecting. Complicated laws and regulations need enforcement and lawyers . You legalize alcohol, FBI needs weed laws and civil rights to keep their jobs. You legalize weed , they need something else. Today the DoJ will charge you by the page to get access to legal documents. What else are we paying tax for !! If it is too complicated for only professionals to understand then needs to be simplified. You are right we need fundamental simplication and radical change . From the Justinian times codification and simplification of law has always been a mark of good civilizations. Asoka put stone pillars so people can know the law. There are countless examples. If ten commandments needed lawyers it would never have worked . It will only happen if we doing something about it .