3 ms·

> without pissing off the judge I find it interesting that many lawyers in the US have this POV.

johndhi 3y ago
Why do you find that interesting? The judge ultimately decides a ton of MASSIVELY important issues for you, and your job as a lawyer is to maintain credibility with them.
- balls187 3y ago
  > Why do you find that interesting? I understand the need to maintain proper court room decorum, but "don't piss the judge off" runs counter to everything we are supposed to believe about the US judicial system being based on fair and impartial judiciary.
  - ShroudedNight 3y ago
    "Fair and impartial" is aspirational: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_judge_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_judge_effect
    - randallsquared 3y ago
      The hungry judge effect hasn't replicated well. For example, https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2022/wp_tse_1393.pdf https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/... , and a few years ago it was pointed out that the actual effect in the original paper seems too large and precise to be true: https://daniellakens.blogspot.com/2017/07/impossibly-hungry-judges.html https://daniellakens.blogspot.com/2017/07/impossibly-hungry-...
  - johndhi 3y ago
    Ah. "Don't piss off the judge" can mean a lot of things to me, and the way I was using it here is (I think) actually pretty fair. It could (but shouldn't) mean: avoid the judge's biases and pet peeves. When I said it I meant: while Amazon may legally have the right to ask for 100x what it really needs, the judge will (rightly) ask them to bring that down to 1 to 5x, and if they fight the judge on it, they may lose the judge's patience for other more important issues.
    - balls187 3y ago
      I know your answer will likely be "it depends on the judge" but in your experience, do judges tend to lean towards some degree of lee-way wrt court rules? I only have limited experience through my own involvements with the legal system, but it seemed like every judge, pro-tem, and magistrate I've dealt with showed some flexibility with certain court rules. And, my limited opinion is lawyers very much push the boundaries what is allowed by the rules, up until they know they will certainly earn a judicial rebuke. I mean, that is part of your craft as a skilled lawyer.
      - johndhi 3y ago
        I'd say yes in some ways, no in others. The yes is that yes, judges generally have pretty wide discretion in applying any given rule, and they apply their own sense of what's reasonable given the circumstances. They're more likely to go out of their way to help a pro se litigant who's making a good effort and bend the rules to make things move along fairly. The no is that judges are allowed to impose their own 'local rules' about little things like how many holes should be punched in the filings submitted to them. If you fuck these up they are generally sticklers for them and get unreasonably (From our perspective as lawyers) upset about this. The other call out is the sentencing guidelines in criminal law. You can google it, but there's been some controversy and history about how much judges can 'deviate' from the sentencing guidelines when giving convicted criminals their jail time.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > but "don't piss the judge off" runs counter to everything we are supposed to believe about the US judicial system being based on fair and impartial judiciary “Don’t piss off the judge” is shorthand for don’t abuse the rules. You have the right to ask for anything. But the judge has to consider reasonableness. If you always dial it to eleven, you’re going to adjust the judge’s priors, and that loses you the benefit of doubt in future requests.
  - treis 3y ago
    It's not a personal issue. It's doing something like pushing code that you haven't tested. It gets you higher scrutiny in the future and annoys everyone.

Why do you find that interesting? The judge ultimately decides a ton of MASSIVELY important issues for you, and your job as a lawyer is to maintain credibility with them.

balls187 3y ago
> Why do you find that interesting? I understand the need to maintain proper court room decorum, but "don't piss the judge off" runs counter to everything we are supposed to believe about the US judicial system being based on fair and impartial judiciary.
- ShroudedNight 3y ago
  "Fair and impartial" is aspirational: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_judge_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_judge_effect
  - randallsquared 3y ago
    The hungry judge effect hasn't replicated well. For example, https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2022/wp_tse_1393.pdf https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/... , and a few years ago it was pointed out that the actual effect in the original paper seems too large and precise to be true: https://daniellakens.blogspot.com/2017/07/impossibly-hungry-judges.html https://daniellakens.blogspot.com/2017/07/impossibly-hungry-...
- johndhi 3y ago
  Ah. "Don't piss off the judge" can mean a lot of things to me, and the way I was using it here is (I think) actually pretty fair. It could (but shouldn't) mean: avoid the judge's biases and pet peeves. When I said it I meant: while Amazon may legally have the right to ask for 100x what it really needs, the judge will (rightly) ask them to bring that down to 1 to 5x, and if they fight the judge on it, they may lose the judge's patience for other more important issues.
  - balls187 3y ago
    I know your answer will likely be "it depends on the judge" but in your experience, do judges tend to lean towards some degree of lee-way wrt court rules? I only have limited experience through my own involvements with the legal system, but it seemed like every judge, pro-tem, and magistrate I've dealt with showed some flexibility with certain court rules. And, my limited opinion is lawyers very much push the boundaries what is allowed by the rules, up until they know they will certainly earn a judicial rebuke. I mean, that is part of your craft as a skilled lawyer.
    - johndhi 3y ago
      I'd say yes in some ways, no in others. The yes is that yes, judges generally have pretty wide discretion in applying any given rule, and they apply their own sense of what's reasonable given the circumstances. They're more likely to go out of their way to help a pro se litigant who's making a good effort and bend the rules to make things move along fairly. The no is that judges are allowed to impose their own 'local rules' about little things like how many holes should be punched in the filings submitted to them. If you fuck these up they are generally sticklers for them and get unreasonably (From our perspective as lawyers) upset about this. The other call out is the sentencing guidelines in criminal law. You can google it, but there's been some controversy and history about how much judges can 'deviate' from the sentencing guidelines when giving convicted criminals their jail time.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > but "don't piss the judge off" runs counter to everything we are supposed to believe about the US judicial system being based on fair and impartial judiciary “Don’t piss off the judge” is shorthand for don’t abuse the rules. You have the right to ask for anything. But the judge has to consider reasonableness. If you always dial it to eleven, you’re going to adjust the judge’s priors, and that loses you the benefit of doubt in future requests.
- treis 3y ago
  It's not a personal issue. It's doing something like pushing code that you haven't tested. It gets you higher scrutiny in the future and annoys everyone.