3 ms·

Yes.

by ulucs 6y ago

Yes.

wegs 6y ago
Even the historic US legal system was designed to have parties be able to reasonably represent themselves in court. Lawyers weren't a thing until pretty recently. Earlier lawyers had fees capped at fairly low levels. Money wasn't a thing since lawyers were fixed-price for a type of case, by legislation. If Biden is talking about serious judicial reforms, simplifying the court system to where individuals can represent themselves, and capping legal fees seem like the ways to do it. He'd never do it, though; the democrats are in the pocket of the legal lobby.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  I think you've confused the US system with the UK system. The US has always had lawyers; a great deal of the founding fathers were themselves lawyers. Fees were never fixed by legislation, generally cases were simpler back then so they didn't have or need time-based billing (that was a relatively recent development). Individuals already can represent themselves in small claims courts. Federal courts are intended for much larger cases (and in fact there is a minimum threshold for cases to be in federal court) and capping legal fees there generally wouldn't benefit either party.
  - wegs 6y ago
    Nope. I didn't. And you can't quite decouple the two; there's a continuous lineage; institutions didn't get reinvented with the revolution: * US is a common law jurisdiction, and indeed, pre-colonization UK courts sometimes act as precedent for post-revolution US courts. * US courts come from colonial courts If you'd like to read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_American_legal_profession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_American_legal_... "Legal procedures in the 17th century were quite informal, with judges discussing issues directly with the people involved in the case." "Colonial legislatures passed laws to fix the fees lawyers could charge for standardized procedures and maintain these fees relatively low. This often led some lawyers to handle a high volume of cases more speedily." ... and so on. By the time the US formed, you had plenty of lawyers, but you had plenty of people representing themselves (and in cases above what would go into small claims). The concept of statutory legal fees is a good one. It's present in a form in the German legal system. It's limited; you can pay more than statutory fees, but you can't recover more than statutory fees if you lose. That's still powerful. I know of a case where a big party PROBABLY owes a small party a few million dollars, but if they came out liable for opposing side's legal fees, they'd be bankrupt. And the litigation would cost a few years of their life. And yes, cases were simpler, but that's as much a property of the unnecessary rising complexity of our legal system as of the cases. Modern cases shouldn't be so complex.

Yes.

by ulucs 6y ago

Yes.

wegs 6y ago

Even the historic US legal system was designed to have parties be able to reasonably represent themselves in court. Lawyers weren't a thing until pretty recently. Earlier lawyers had fees capped at fairly low levels. Money wasn't a thing since lawyers were fixed-price for a type of case, by legislation. If Biden is talking about serious judicial reforms, simplifying the court system to where individuals can represent themselves, and capping legal fees seem like the ways to do it. He'd never do it, though; the democrats are in the pocket of the legal lobby.

gamblor956 6y ago
I think you've confused the US system with the UK system. The US has always had lawyers; a great deal of the founding fathers were themselves lawyers. Fees were never fixed by legislation, generally cases were simpler back then so they didn't have or need time-based billing (that was a relatively recent development). Individuals already can represent themselves in small claims courts. Federal courts are intended for much larger cases (and in fact there is a minimum threshold for cases to be in federal court) and capping legal fees there generally wouldn't benefit either party.
- wegs 6y ago
  Nope. I didn't. And you can't quite decouple the two; there's a continuous lineage; institutions didn't get reinvented with the revolution: * US is a common law jurisdiction, and indeed, pre-colonization UK courts sometimes act as precedent for post-revolution US courts. * US courts come from colonial courts If you'd like to read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_American_legal_profession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_American_legal_... "Legal procedures in the 17th century were quite informal, with judges discussing issues directly with the people involved in the case." "Colonial legislatures passed laws to fix the fees lawyers could charge for standardized procedures and maintain these fees relatively low. This often led some lawyers to handle a high volume of cases more speedily." ... and so on. By the time the US formed, you had plenty of lawyers, but you had plenty of people representing themselves (and in cases above what would go into small claims). The concept of statutory legal fees is a good one. It's present in a form in the German legal system. It's limited; you can pay more than statutory fees, but you can't recover more than statutory fees if you lose. That's still powerful. I know of a case where a big party PROBABLY owes a small party a few million dollars, but if they came out liable for opposing side's legal fees, they'd be bankrupt. And the litigation would cost a few years of their life. And yes, cases were simpler, but that's as much a property of the unnecessary rising complexity of our legal system as of the cases. Modern cases shouldn't be so complex.