5 ms·

While the parties are usually laypeople, the drafters and readers of significance are almost always lawyers. If you decide to try to bring a claim against your

While the parties are usually laypeople, the drafters and readers of significance are almost always lawyers. If you decide to try to bring a claim against your mortgage lender, will you have a lawyer read your mortgage agreement before you file suit? Surely.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
Then what hope is there for a layperson to do anything of significance without first having a lawyer vet the EULA? Such agreements are already absurdly long for some of the most trivial services or products. The answer cannot become "be a lawyer or rich enough to afford retaining one".
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  There is no such hope, and that is the answer. Much of this country is set up by and for lawyers, and that has consequences.
  - johndhi 4y ago
    Agree. There is generally little hope of a layperson (or even a lawyer typically) of benefitting from a EULA. That said, laws separate from the contract might benefit you - if Microsoft's software kills your dog, you probably can't recover under the contract, but you might be able to win a lawsuit against them for breaking the law. Unfortunately that process is also costly and benefits greatly from lawyer involvement. It's a widely known problem that it's expensive to navigate the court system.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > Then what hope is there for a layperson to do anything of significance without first having a lawyer vet the EULA? I think this focuses attention on the wrong thing. A counterparty that is acting in good faith will not put absurdly long legalese in a contract, because if they are acting in good faith, it is in their interest to reach a genuine meeting of the minds with you, because fulfilling the contract will benefit both of you. So the first question to ask is, is your counterparty acting in good faith? Are they genuinely trying to reach a win-win agreement with you, where both sides benefit? Or are they just trying to get whatever they can out of you, by hook or by crook, without caring whether you benefit? If the answer to that is the latter, your best option is to avoid dealing with that counterparty at all. If a counterparty is not acting in good faith, no amount of legal analysis of contract language can protect you. (And that is why I avoid using products and services that have those absurdly long EULAs whenever possible.) And if a counterparty is acting in good faith, you should be able to reach agreement on reasonably simple contract language that a lay person can understand.
  - zaphar 4y ago
    By this reasoning the vast majority of lawyers drafting contracts are not acting in good faith because the vast majority of lawyers are drafting obtuse unreadable contracts. Which is perhaps the case but the current reality is that encountering readable contracts is the exception not the common case.
    - pdonis 4y ago
      > By this reasoning the vast majority of lawyers drafting contracts are not acting in good faith because the vast majority of lawyers are drafting obtuse unreadable contracts More precisely, the clients the lawyers are representing aren't acting in good faith because they are fine with their lawyers doing that. As your next remark suggests, this is indeed the current reality: legal instruments like contracts are not used to enable win-win agreements that create wealth, but as tools of predation. That's not how it's supposed to be, but it is, unfortunately, often how it is.
pdonis 4y ago
> While the parties are usually laypeople, the drafters and readers of significance are almost always lawyers. I disagree. First, many contracts are not drafted by lawyers. Mortgage notes, which you mention, usually are; but, for example, a real estate sales contract in most states is standard boilerplate language that was drafted by realtors, not lawyers. Second, saying that lawyers have to read the contract if a dispute goes to court doesn't mean lawyers "almost always" are the readers of significance, since most contracts never result in a dispute that goes to court. If a dispute goes to court, then of course it is prudent to hire a lawyer to represent your interests. But if contract language has done its job properly, there will never be a dispute that needs to go to court, because both parties--lay people--will have had a common understanding of what the contract says and will act in good faith to fulfill it.

paulryanrogers 4y ago

Then what hope is there for a layperson to do anything of significance without first having a lawyer vet the EULA? Such agreements are already absurdly long for some of the most trivial services or products. The answer cannot become "be a lawyer or rich enough to afford retaining one".

BurningFrog 4y ago
There is no such hope, and that is the answer. Much of this country is set up by and for lawyers, and that has consequences.
- johndhi 4y ago
  Agree. There is generally little hope of a layperson (or even a lawyer typically) of benefitting from a EULA. That said, laws separate from the contract might benefit you - if Microsoft's software kills your dog, you probably can't recover under the contract, but you might be able to win a lawsuit against them for breaking the law. Unfortunately that process is also costly and benefits greatly from lawyer involvement. It's a widely known problem that it's expensive to navigate the court system.
pdonis 4y ago
> Then what hope is there for a layperson to do anything of significance without first having a lawyer vet the EULA? I think this focuses attention on the wrong thing. A counterparty that is acting in good faith will not put absurdly long legalese in a contract, because if they are acting in good faith, it is in their interest to reach a genuine meeting of the minds with you, because fulfilling the contract will benefit both of you. So the first question to ask is, is your counterparty acting in good faith? Are they genuinely trying to reach a win-win agreement with you, where both sides benefit? Or are they just trying to get whatever they can out of you, by hook or by crook, without caring whether you benefit? If the answer to that is the latter, your best option is to avoid dealing with that counterparty at all. If a counterparty is not acting in good faith, no amount of legal analysis of contract language can protect you. (And that is why I avoid using products and services that have those absurdly long EULAs whenever possible.) And if a counterparty is acting in good faith, you should be able to reach agreement on reasonably simple contract language that a lay person can understand.
- zaphar 4y ago
  By this reasoning the vast majority of lawyers drafting contracts are not acting in good faith because the vast majority of lawyers are drafting obtuse unreadable contracts. Which is perhaps the case but the current reality is that encountering readable contracts is the exception not the common case.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > By this reasoning the vast majority of lawyers drafting contracts are not acting in good faith because the vast majority of lawyers are drafting obtuse unreadable contracts More precisely, the clients the lawyers are representing aren't acting in good faith because they are fine with their lawyers doing that. As your next remark suggests, this is indeed the current reality: legal instruments like contracts are not used to enable win-win agreements that create wealth, but as tools of predation. That's not how it's supposed to be, but it is, unfortunately, often how it is.

pdonis 4y ago

> While the parties are usually laypeople, the drafters and readers of significance are almost always lawyers. I disagree. First, many contracts are not drafted by lawyers. Mortgage notes, which you mention, usually are; but, for example, a real estate sales contract in most states is standard boilerplate language that was drafted by realtors, not lawyers. Second, saying that lawyers have to read the contract if a dispute goes to court doesn't mean lawyers "almost always" are the readers of significance, since most contracts never result in a dispute that goes to court. If a dispute goes to court, then of course it is prudent to hire a lawyer to represent your interests. But if contract language has done its job properly, there will never be a dispute that needs to go to court, because both parties--lay people--will have had a common understanding of what the contract says and will act in good faith to fulfill it.