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I've written code a lot longer than I've written legal text. But the longer I've written both, the less "proximate" they've seemed. Drawing parallels pleases th
by kemitchell 6y ago
I've written code a lot longer than I've written legal text. But the longer I've written both, the less "proximate" they've seemed. Drawing parallels pleases the mind, but it's more trouble than helpful, most of the time.
If you want to make legal texts even worse to read and write, throw in a heavy dose of CS-esque structuralism.
- mnahkies 6y agoI had the pleasure of building software requirements from legislation once and discovered that everything left room for interpretation, made what seemed on the face of it a relatively well understood thing difficult to build.
- D13Fd 6y agoI’ve been a coder on-and-off since the 1990’s, and an attorney for >10 years, in litigation. I actually disagree. I think legal writing is closer to programming in a lot of ways than it is to creative writing. They are all different things, but I’ve always found the parallels kind of interesting.
- borepop 6y agoI'm constantly repeating Justice Holmes' adage that "the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience." In my opinion, non lawyers vastly overestimate the extent to which legal writing and legal argument have anything to do with logic.