3 ms·

> the professions he lists are "lawyers, MBA holders,..." and later to finance. But these are the professions likely to be zero-sum. True, people with zero-sum

> the professions he lists are "lawyers, MBA holders,..." and later to finance. But these are the professions likely to be zero-sum. True, people with zero-sum, "I want more!" attitudes might very well self-select for the listed lines of work, perhaps because of the greater potential payoffs and arguably-weaker checks and balances there. But at the risk of sounding defensive, zero-sumness really does depend greatly on individuals' attitudes: Lawyers can be useful in the same sense that cars' transmissions and oil pumps are useful; MBA types are trained in planning and management, which, I dunno, have their uses; financiers can get people who have money to part with it voluntarily so that others can make use of it. When I took a review course for the patent bar exam many years ago, Professor Irv Kayton told us forcefully that our job as patent attorneys was not to be scientists or engineers ourselves — we all had science- or engineering backgrounds — but instead to be the "noble servants" of those innovators in society.

whiddershins 5y ago
In all fairness the legal <=> political feedback loop seems to act to make law less zero sum, by continually increasing the amount of law and regulation, hence an ever-growing pie of legal work. And all cynicism aside, a growing economy might organically increase the need for lawyers.
- dctoedt 5y ago
  > a growing economy might organically increase the need for lawyers. I've long thought that; the need for lawyers grows non-linearly with population, because the need is correlated with the number of transactions, which would tend to increase (exponentially? factorially?) with population.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > the need for lawyers grows non-linearly with population, because the need is correlated with the number of transactions This is a cultural artifact, not a cross-cultural truth. The historical norm is to use zero lawyers even for the largest-scale transactions. It's still the modern norm to use zero lawyers for small-scale transactions.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Or use fractional lawyers on one side. All that paper work, and how many use lawyer to check it? Or check when it is forcibly updated... What should be asked do we have shortage of lawyers? From pricing point of view clearly no, they make more than minimum wage, but in general? Outside court-side is someone struggling to find one? Or are cases waiting cause we do not have them?
    - dctoedt 5y ago
      > It's still the modern norm to use zero lawyers for small-scale transactions. It's great when that happens — and to make it work, there are a couple of conditions that need to be satisfied. 1. All parties to a transaction need to know "the protocol," or "the drill," that is, how to conduct themselves as the transaction proceeds. (Imagine a complicated, multi-person dance where people could crash into each other if they didn't know the steps — or knew the steps but chose not to follow them.) Competent lawyers can provide the necessary knowledge, but they don't necessarily have to be the sole source of such knowledge: Various industries have developed standardized protocols for different categories of transaction. Examples: the Incoterms [0] and the ISDA Master Agreement [1], to name just two that come immediately to mind. 2. There's another reason parties use lawyers, and contracts, in their transactions: At bottom, companies are just people [2], and people can be perfidious; at some point The Other Side might choose to behave opportunistically. Contracts can help dissuade such behavior. For better or worse, lawyers are one of the principal groups who (might) know how to draft contracts to that end; good lawyers know how to do so without unduly getting in the way of the parties' business. Consider Alice and Bob, who agree to a contract on behalf of their employers Alpha Corp. and Bravo LLC. Each might be a fine, trustworthy, cooperative individual. But they're human; at some point they might be tempted — or pressured by colleagues — to cheat, or to seek unfair advantage, especially if circumstances were to change. Moreover, one or both of their successors Allen and Betty might be less trustworthy. This means that Alpha and Bravo's contract must guard against opportunistic behavior by one or both of them. Lawyers (can) help to negotiate contracts with appropriate roadblock language. Again lawyers aren't necessarily the sole source of the necessary knowledge; it just happens to have worked out that they're one of the main sources of it. Also, lawyers can be useful targets of finger-pointing by business people if a transaction doesn't work out as desired. That can be another, usually-unstated reason why people hire lawyers: To offload at least some of the risk of failure. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/isda-master-agreement.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/isda-master-agreement.a... [2] In the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney was pilloried for saying "corporations are people," but in one sense the criticism was unfair: If Romney had said "corporations are just people," his statement would have been far more defensible. (Disclosure: I'm a lawyer.)
oblio 5y ago
> MBA types are trained in planning and management, which, I dunno, have their uses I'm assuming you didn't mean it this way (I guess it was an ironic comment), but planning and management are incredibly important. The most important part to our scaling is how we organize ourselves. A top notch organizer allows a group of people to scale seamlessly. That's worth everything in the modern world. Imagine thousands of brilliant minds, organized elegantly and efficiently to work together at maximum efficiency. It's rare because it's incredibly hard to achieve. But when it does happen, we get so much output, both creative and physical, that it's almost unbelievable. Think Bell Labs & co.
- dctoedt 5y ago
  > I'm assuming you didn't mean it this way (I guess it was an ironic comment), but planning and management are incredibly important. I was making a joke; I meant it exactly the way that you put it. Human efforts can tend to go in different directions. Without foresight, planning, leadership, and communication — MBAs get at least some training in these skills — the individuals within organizations can end up mutually interfering with each other, even when they don't intend to do so. So yeah, MBAs "do have their uses" (another joke).

whiddershins 5y ago

In all fairness the legal <=> political feedback loop seems to act to make law less zero sum, by continually increasing the amount of law and regulation, hence an ever-growing pie of legal work. And all cynicism aside, a growing economy might organically increase the need for lawyers.

dctoedt 5y ago
> a growing economy might organically increase the need for lawyers. I've long thought that; the need for lawyers grows non-linearly with population, because the need is correlated with the number of transactions, which would tend to increase (exponentially? factorially?) with population.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > the need for lawyers grows non-linearly with population, because the need is correlated with the number of transactions This is a cultural artifact, not a cross-cultural truth. The historical norm is to use zero lawyers even for the largest-scale transactions. It's still the modern norm to use zero lawyers for small-scale transactions.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Or use fractional lawyers on one side. All that paper work, and how many use lawyer to check it? Or check when it is forcibly updated... What should be asked do we have shortage of lawyers? From pricing point of view clearly no, they make more than minimum wage, but in general? Outside court-side is someone struggling to find one? Or are cases waiting cause we do not have them?
  - dctoedt 5y ago
    > It's still the modern norm to use zero lawyers for small-scale transactions. It's great when that happens — and to make it work, there are a couple of conditions that need to be satisfied. 1. All parties to a transaction need to know "the protocol," or "the drill," that is, how to conduct themselves as the transaction proceeds. (Imagine a complicated, multi-person dance where people could crash into each other if they didn't know the steps — or knew the steps but chose not to follow them.) Competent lawyers can provide the necessary knowledge, but they don't necessarily have to be the sole source of such knowledge: Various industries have developed standardized protocols for different categories of transaction. Examples: the Incoterms [0] and the ISDA Master Agreement [1], to name just two that come immediately to mind. 2. There's another reason parties use lawyers, and contracts, in their transactions: At bottom, companies are just people [2], and people can be perfidious; at some point The Other Side might choose to behave opportunistically. Contracts can help dissuade such behavior. For better or worse, lawyers are one of the principal groups who (might) know how to draft contracts to that end; good lawyers know how to do so without unduly getting in the way of the parties' business. Consider Alice and Bob, who agree to a contract on behalf of their employers Alpha Corp. and Bravo LLC. Each might be a fine, trustworthy, cooperative individual. But they're human; at some point they might be tempted — or pressured by colleagues — to cheat, or to seek unfair advantage, especially if circumstances were to change. Moreover, one or both of their successors Allen and Betty might be less trustworthy. This means that Alpha and Bravo's contract must guard against opportunistic behavior by one or both of them. Lawyers (can) help to negotiate contracts with appropriate roadblock language. Again lawyers aren't necessarily the sole source of the necessary knowledge; it just happens to have worked out that they're one of the main sources of it. Also, lawyers can be useful targets of finger-pointing by business people if a transaction doesn't work out as desired. That can be another, usually-unstated reason why people hire lawyers: To offload at least some of the risk of failure. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/isda-master-agreement.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/isda-master-agreement.a... [2] In the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney was pilloried for saying "corporations are people," but in one sense the criticism was unfair: If Romney had said "corporations are just people," his statement would have been far more defensible. (Disclosure: I'm a lawyer.)

oblio 5y ago

> MBA types are trained in planning and management, which, I dunno, have their uses I'm assuming you didn't mean it this way (I guess it was an ironic comment), but planning and management are incredibly important. The most important part to our scaling is how we organize ourselves. A top notch organizer allows a group of people to scale seamlessly. That's worth everything in the modern world. Imagine thousands of brilliant minds, organized elegantly and efficiently to work together at maximum efficiency. It's rare because it's incredibly hard to achieve. But when it does happen, we get so much output, both creative and physical, that it's almost unbelievable. Think Bell Labs & co.

dctoedt 5y ago
> I'm assuming you didn't mean it this way (I guess it was an ironic comment), but planning and management are incredibly important. I was making a joke; I meant it exactly the way that you put it. Human efforts can tend to go in different directions. Without foresight, planning, leadership, and communication — MBAs get at least some training in these skills — the individuals within organizations can end up mutually interfering with each other, even when they don't intend to do so. So yeah, MBAs "do have their uses" (another joke).