4 ms·

If there is one type of person you should: 1) Never debate 2) Never listen to 3) Never, ever trust unless you're the one paying them It is a trial lawyer. T

If there is one type of person you should: 1) Never debate 2) Never listen to 3) Never, ever trust unless you're the one paying them It is a trial lawyer. They do not follow the rules as you know them. They play to win. They're one step above mercenaries or pirates. Their entire job is to be convincing without necessarily being right. That's what they're paid to do.

keernan 3y ago
I was a civil trial lawyer for 45+ years (retired now). I couldn't disagree with your statement more. 1. In 99% of civil trials there was an opportunity for both lawyers to settle, but they decided their client would do better at trial. In every one of those trials, one of the lawyers was horribly wrong. That's the life of every trial lawyer. 2. The job of a trial lawyer is not "to be convincing without necessarily being right." The job of a trial lawyer is knowing which cases to try and which cases to settle. 3. Top trial lawyers know in advance when they have a winning case and when they have a losing case. And they don't try a losing case. They settle. Because the bottom line is: you try a losing case against me? I promise you the outcome. You are going to lose. Nobody tries a losing case against a top trial lawyer and wins. After I got my feet wet with several hundred non-jury small claims property damage cases, I then tried just under 75 jury trials and chancery cases. There is only one case that I lost (interesting story for another day). Not because I was Perry Mason. But because I was very good at knowing which cases to try and which to settle.
vintermann 3y ago
There are a lot more lawyers than that guy in politics though. I don't get what the fuss is about. Proper politicians believe lots of untenable things too. The difference is that they won't usually be confronted on it, if they are the journalist will be blacklisted as someone who clearly wants the other team to win. That is, if they're open about it at all. You can bet a lot of mainstream politicians, and maybe even more policemen, spies and government officials, believe in staring-at-goats level stuff. They just don't believe in the necessity or desirability of convincing the public of any of it. I expect that in the unlikely event RFK Jr. wins, maybe if Biden is unable to continue and they can't unify around anyone else - then RFK Jr. will quietly stop talking about fringe stuff like this, and the press will dutifully not bring it up anymore. He's from a political dynasty, he'll do the transfer to mainstream candidate just fine.
- AbrahamParangi 3y ago
  As an aside, I know a number of Democrats who will vote for a Republican before they’ll vote for a Kennedy. Nothing against Kennedys, just not a fan of your principal claim to fame being your last name.
kevinventullo 3y ago
In my opinion, this condemns the whole format. How you can trust any conclusion from a process that can so easily be undermined?
- F2hP18Foam 3y ago
  It's so tempting to give a trite "now you're asking the real questions" type answer, but I think it is possible if you become familiar with the kinds of rhetoric debaters use and evaluate how that lines up with the known facts of an issue. It is cognitively taxing to do, and for what it's worth I'm not great at it.
  - kevinventullo 3y ago
    The problem is that most members of an audience are not familiar with that rhetoric, and end up believing whichever debater is better at executing it.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  Well, it's not perfect, but it's probably the best we have. The adversarial trial format process assumes (hopes) that: 1. Both sides have competent lawyers that are doing the same thing 2. The judge prevents lawyers from going outside the rules 3. The jury is competent and is putting forth an honest effort 4. If misconduct is discovered after the fact there are avenues to a retrial (appeal, etc) We can look at many times where this system went horribly wrong. However I think it's fairly close to the best that can be hoped for. When all parties are competent and well-intentioned (not always the case, sadly) it is probably one of the strongest links in the legal system.
  - jfengel 3y ago
    I would argue that #4 is where this fails most dramatically. Once you have been convicted of a crime, none of the "innocent until proven guilty" protections apply any more. You have very little recourse, even if you possess overwhelming evidence of misconduct. Appeals are, at best, very slow, and there is a good chance that you will be spending that time in jail -- during which time it is hard to prepare for your defense. And there is practically no penalty for a prosecutor who engages in misconduct. They hold immunity stronger even that that of police. There is effectively zero constraint on them to be honest. Many do it anyway -- they are not, for the post part, monsters. But if you encounter one who is, your rights were effectively forfeit the minute you walked in the door.
dekhn 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric Once I learned about that (as a technique) it completely changed how I present ideas and greatly increased the number of people who were influenced by them. I also realized that logic is greatly overrated in debate because almost nothing covered in debates is ruled by logic, IE if you're trying to debate a policy for homeless people, logic contributes nothing.

keernan 3y ago

I was a civil trial lawyer for 45+ years (retired now). I couldn't disagree with your statement more. 1. In 99% of civil trials there was an opportunity for both lawyers to settle, but they decided their client would do better at trial. In every one of those trials, one of the lawyers was horribly wrong. That's the life of every trial lawyer. 2. The job of a trial lawyer is not "to be convincing without necessarily being right." The job of a trial lawyer is knowing which cases to try and which cases to settle. 3. Top trial lawyers know in advance when they have a winning case and when they have a losing case. And they don't try a losing case. They settle. Because the bottom line is: you try a losing case against me? I promise you the outcome. You are going to lose. Nobody tries a losing case against a top trial lawyer and wins. After I got my feet wet with several hundred non-jury small claims property damage cases, I then tried just under 75 jury trials and chancery cases. There is only one case that I lost (interesting story for another day). Not because I was Perry Mason. But because I was very good at knowing which cases to try and which to settle.

vintermann 3y ago

There are a lot more lawyers than that guy in politics though. I don't get what the fuss is about. Proper politicians believe lots of untenable things too. The difference is that they won't usually be confronted on it, if they are the journalist will be blacklisted as someone who clearly wants the other team to win. That is, if they're open about it at all. You can bet a lot of mainstream politicians, and maybe even more policemen, spies and government officials, believe in staring-at-goats level stuff. They just don't believe in the necessity or desirability of convincing the public of any of it. I expect that in the unlikely event RFK Jr. wins, maybe if Biden is unable to continue and they can't unify around anyone else - then RFK Jr. will quietly stop talking about fringe stuff like this, and the press will dutifully not bring it up anymore. He's from a political dynasty, he'll do the transfer to mainstream candidate just fine.

AbrahamParangi 3y ago
As an aside, I know a number of Democrats who will vote for a Republican before they’ll vote for a Kennedy. Nothing against Kennedys, just not a fan of your principal claim to fame being your last name.

kevinventullo 3y ago

In my opinion, this condemns the whole format. How you can trust any conclusion from a process that can so easily be undermined?

F2hP18Foam 3y ago
It's so tempting to give a trite "now you're asking the real questions" type answer, but I think it is possible if you become familiar with the kinds of rhetoric debaters use and evaluate how that lines up with the known facts of an issue. It is cognitively taxing to do, and for what it's worth I'm not great at it.
- kevinventullo 3y ago
  The problem is that most members of an audience are not familiar with that rhetoric, and end up believing whichever debater is better at executing it.
JohnBooty 3y ago
Well, it's not perfect, but it's probably the best we have. The adversarial trial format process assumes (hopes) that: 1. Both sides have competent lawyers that are doing the same thing 2. The judge prevents lawyers from going outside the rules 3. The jury is competent and is putting forth an honest effort 4. If misconduct is discovered after the fact there are avenues to a retrial (appeal, etc) We can look at many times where this system went horribly wrong. However I think it's fairly close to the best that can be hoped for. When all parties are competent and well-intentioned (not always the case, sadly) it is probably one of the strongest links in the legal system.
- jfengel 3y ago
  I would argue that #4 is where this fails most dramatically. Once you have been convicted of a crime, none of the "innocent until proven guilty" protections apply any more. You have very little recourse, even if you possess overwhelming evidence of misconduct. Appeals are, at best, very slow, and there is a good chance that you will be spending that time in jail -- during which time it is hard to prepare for your defense. And there is practically no penalty for a prosecutor who engages in misconduct. They hold immunity stronger even that that of police. There is effectively zero constraint on them to be honest. Many do it anyway -- they are not, for the post part, monsters. But if you encounter one who is, your rights were effectively forfeit the minute you walked in the door.

dekhn 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric Once I learned about that (as a technique) it completely changed how I present ideas and greatly increased the number of people who were influenced by them. I also realized that logic is greatly overrated in debate because almost nothing covered in debates is ruled by logic, IE if you're trying to debate a policy for homeless people, logic contributes nothing.