3 ms·

When nobody tells lawyers no, this is what happens. This protects nobody other than some lawyers feeling fuzzy that they "mitigated risks" for their customer.

• anticensor 4y ago
  What if they are not allowed to say no to lawyers?
  • sennight 4y ago
    Legal is a cost center, which means that they don't get to say no. Here is how that conversation goes: Lawyer: You must include my unenforceable EULA. Anyone-with-a-brain: lol, no. Your "contribution" to this project only serves to do the direct opposite of our stated intent... Actually, why are you involving yourself here - are you billing for this? Lawyer scampering noises recede into the distance
    • newaccount74 4y ago
      I think what a lot of people don't understand is that a lawyers job is to provide advise, not to make decisions.
      • bottled_poe 4y ago
        Poorly conceived advice apparently.
        • DannyBee 4y ago
          Only in the minds of HN engineers. Lawyers who tell their clients to do nothing rather than actually help try to figure out a path forward go out of business very quickly. In-house counsel is a little different but again even at places like IBM the lawyers could not get away with blocking meaningful business
      • dsr_ 4y ago
        Specifically, lawyers advise their clients on how to avoid liability. The minimum liability comes from doing nothing, so the default advice is "Don't."
        • lxgr 4y ago
          > The minimum liability comes from doing nothing You must be working in a very unregulated industry if that’s true!
          • aidenn0 4y ago
            It still follows: "How do I not get sued for my new medical device?" "Don't sell it to anybody."
    • checkyoursudo 4y ago
      As a recovering lawyer, all I will say is that, it is extremely rare for any lawyer to have the power to do anything directly themselves of their own initiative, which is even more true in business than in other areas of law (lawyers can railroad their immigration, criminal defense, family law, etc clients a bit more because these clients have even less clue what is the right thing to do). More likely in your scenario is: Lawyer: You must include this EULA that this person/board/committee demands, and will fire both of us if you don't, because they asked me how to cover their asses in case of XYZ. Anyone-with-a-brain: okay. Lawyers themselves are certainly powerful, but they only really derive power from people with real power; states, boards of directors, judges, etc.
      • scrollaway 4y ago
        In a room sit three great men. A CEO, a lawyer, and an investor paying for both.
      • sennight 4y ago
        As a person who as been described as an "activist investor" by several angry businessmen, I've never seen a shareholder or board member demand anything like that. The only thing that I can think of that would loosely fit your hypothetical scenario would involve a non-human shareholder like a hedge fund making the demand, at the behest of their lawyers. I suppose another potential loose fit would be a fresh business school grad whining about the absence of a "moat" - and this sort of thing being the best that legal could offer in response. In either case both legal and management is to blame: legal for the bad council and management for not pushing back against something so stupid.
• pas 4y ago
  this an old school organization, they don't really have any incentives to be user friendly. they manage a lot of standards, it's a stable gig, they are doing okay, so they did what usually old school organizations do, they got an EULA decade(s) ago and now it's just there and maybe gets updated from time to time. buf no one even questions the need for it. maybe if more things move online, if they face some serious competition, then they might start thinking about these as potential UX issues