5 ms·

Modern law is effectively a cartel. There is no reason that an educated, intelligent man shouldn't be able to represent himself in most cases with fair preparat

by hurin 12y ago

Modern law is effectively a cartel. There is no reason that an educated, intelligent man shouldn't be able to represent himself in most cases with fair preparation - so the bulk of modern law consists of creating obscure procedures and technicalities to make the former especially difficult, thus allowing the elite and privileged class to have an all-together different experience and preferable outcomes within the law which is only theoretically supposed to be applied in equal measure to all.

tptacek 12y ago
Fairness and simplicity are in tension with each other.
s_q_b 12y ago
A fair justice system is by necessity complex, and a complex system necessarily requires guidance from an expert.
- hurin 12y ago
  What does it mean to be an expert? The cartel-aspect is that it's not good enough to know the relevant law (it's not any harder to read legal documents than manuals) or to be able to emphasize it's relevance and logical coherence relative to the case. This is precisely the kind of mystical nonsense notion that I was referring to. In their view a qualified defense must be made by a lawyer precisely for the sake of it being made by a lawyer, and for preserving the power-structure of the institution.
  - s_q_b 12y ago
    No. A qualified defense must be made by someone with requisite legal knowledge, and while not everyone with that knowledge must necessarily be an attorney, of course the courts use a law degree and the bar exam as heuristics. The simple fact that you think legal documents are no more difficult to understand than manuals is a perfect example of how woefully unprepared for the legal arena certain members of the general public are. It takes a long time to learn statutory law, case law, common law, constitutional law, regulatory law, and their interconnections about even a single subject, and it is assumed throughout that you will have knowledge of legal concepts that aren't contained in those documents. Is it possible to represent yourself and win? Yes. If you really know the law that well, you won't have a problem, even pro se. The issue is that many pro se litigants are like you. They hubristically believe the law is like an IKEA instruction booklet, advance wildly incorrect theories due to lack of foundational knowledge, end up wasting vast amounts of the court's time at taxpayer expense, and then bitterly complain that the judge didn't follow the law when they lose.
    - hurin 12y ago
      > The issue is that many pro se litigants are like you...hubristically believe...advance wildly incorrect theories Thank you for the ad-hominem attacks. Usually these come when the interlocutor has little left to say of merit. > A qualified defense must be made by someone with requisite legal knowledge. And the key part of this statement is the mystical belief that requisite legal knowledge is something intangible to the case and which defies normal logic. So you'll accept a guy working in a patent office solving a difficult problem in physics, but heaven forbid he should feel qualified to represent himself in court. >it is assumed throughout that you will have knowledge of legal concepts that aren't contained in those documents. More mysticism? You would be surprised how many lawyers I've talked to that would have failed out of a first semester course on formal logic. >advance wildly incorrect theories due to lack of foundational knowledge, end up wasting vast amounts of the court's time at taxpayer expense, and then bitterly complain that the judge didn't follow the law when they lose Actually I have had the occasion to defend myself in court. For what it's worth it took me three court appearances, because the prosecutor was completely oblivious to how groundless the case was; thus happily wasting three days of my economic productivity (which cost more than the fine would have) as well as tax payer money.
      - nmrm2 12y ago
        > So you'll accept a guy working in a patent office solving a difficult problem in physics, but heaven forbid he should feel qualified to represent himself in court. Citing Einstein as a prototypical example is somehow conceding the parent's point, don't you think? > You would be surprised how many lawyers I've talked to that would have failed out of a first semester course on formal logic. This I can believe; but then, law has very little to do with formal systems and the sort of informal "logic" used in legal reasoning is absolutely uninformed by anything but the first week or so of a standard intro to mathematical logic course (most legal theory/systems pre-date the advent of modern logic in the late 19th century).
        hurin 12y ago
        > Citing Einstein as a prototypical example is somehow conceding the parent's point, don't you think? I'm not citing Einstein as a prototypical example by any means, but I'm citing the idea about how we verify knowledge in a subject. If a guy from a Burger King comes and says, hey I've got a result in theoretical physics, or hey hire me as a developer - we have a method to verify whether they can do those things in a practical way and this shouldn't require platitudes about complexity and history of jurisprudence etc. (or the equivalent for those fields). >This I can believe; but then, law has very little to do with formal systems and the sort of informal "logic" used in legal reasoning is absolutely uninformed by anything but the first week or so of a standard intro to mathematical logic course (most legal theory/systems pre-date the advent of modern logic in the late 19th century). Formal logic logic as far as reasoning about non-mathematical subjects is probably not that far from where it was in Aristotle's days. I don't know about the actual application of law - indeed your average jury may very well be swayed (I'll quote from yesterday): "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. We will show you how the defendant used the notorious hacker tool known as 'strings' to facilitate his vendetta against Lenovo." But that a Jury would be swayed by something like that and that it's the business of prosecution to make such arguments (hypothetically) is I think precisely in support of my point about the law. On the other hand the authors considered to be authorities Jurisprudence are, I think, very well informed in formal logic.
  - summerdown2 12y ago
    In addition to the other points made below, I'd like to advance a further idea. An unqualified person may indeed be able to read legal documents and prepare themselves for taking on a legal case. But lawyers have had years of study in which their preparation has been legally challenged, followed by years of practice in which their preparation has been legally challenged. a) They not only know the law, but also the likely approaches an opponent might make to arguing against it. Forewarned is, somewhat, forearmed. But also. b) They probably end up very good judges of how prepared they are. I suggest this is a variant of the Dunning-Kruger effect. An untrained person might be able to study law and defend themself. I'm sure there are cases where it's easy and cases where it's hard. But, being unexperienced, they will not be good judges as to their chances of winning, what their best strategy is, or whether they have done sufficient prep to meet likely objections. i.e. more than anything else, experience lets people judge their own progress. A beginner would be clueless in this aspect.
- sgift 12y ago
  The moment you require guidance from an expert you've left the land of law and entered the land of interpretation, which is by definition never fair, because such a justice system lacks the basic properties of fair laws: clarity of provisions, determinedness of provisions and comprehensibility of provisions. Without these three things you have no justice, just law.
  - s_q_b 12y ago
    The system of legal representation is older than our legal system itself, having its roots in ancient Rome. While law must be comprehensible by the general citizenry, this is constantly at odds with the complexity needed to support equally complex economic and social interactions. Edit in reply: >That is certainly correct, but not very insightful. Just because something is old it is not good. I mention the Roman legal system, as most legal requirements that have survived several millennia intact have extremely valid reasons. In this case, the reason is one that I have already elucidated: Human behavior is complex, and thus the law must be as well. To understand complex systems, most people need the assistance of a trained professional. As to your second point, do you have an alternate solution? Most people have plumbing too complex for them to repair, why should anyone expect a national legal system to be more simple than household plumbing? >If you cannot understand laws yourself you need legal guidance for everything you do... No, you don't. There is a third alternative, and it's what most people do. They hire counsel when engaging in high-stakes disputes, negotiations, or agreements. Second Edit: Rhino above ^ has certainly expressed my viewpoint most clearly and succinctly here.
    - sgift 12y ago
      > The system of legal representation is older than our legal system itself, having its roots in ancient Rome. That is certainly correct, but not very insightful. Just because something is old it is not good. Basically, what legal representation tries to solve is the problem that law makers want to make some laws which are no longer understandable by the general citizenry, usually for the reasons you've noted (complex interactions need complex laws(1)). So, to solve that fundamental problem people thought a while and then introduced legal representation as a solution, which created a new problem: It is a fake solution. To be a law-abiding citizen forces you to know what you are allowed to do and what you are not allowed to do. If you cannot understand laws yourself you need legal guidance for everything you do, which is simply unfeasable in reality(2). The alternative system used in reality is "well, I think I understand what's expected of me, so I'll just do it" ... which works 80% of the time and will bite you in the ass 20% of the time. These are usually the court cases where people are "100% certain" that "I didn't do anything wrong!" while the lawyers just think "Oh yes, you did. You did, you just didn't know. Welcome in hell." (1) At least that is usually assumed and the discussion will only get harder if we start questioning that assumption, so I'll stay with it for the moment. (2) Due to costs, time consumption and so on. Life would come to a grinding halt if people actually followed that model.
- trevelyan 12y ago
  Why is a fair justice system by necessity complex?
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    Because blanket generalisations do not work well, so you must be just as complex as society at large.
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
In any legal system, no matter how fair, a lawyer would be necessary.
- hurin 12y ago
  > Because blanket generalisations do not work well, > In any legal system, no matter how fair, a lawyer would be necessary. > so you must be just as complex as society at large. Do you see what I did there?
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    You're taking what I said out-of-context. Blanket legal generalisations don't work well. A lawyer is necessary because you need an expert in law's complexities. This is a fairly reasonable generalisation: the vast majority of people do not have sufficient knowledge of law to represent themselves well.
    - hurin 12y ago
      You say that certain generalizations (which you do not believe to be true) are inherently unreasonable. But you have no problem making a generalization about something you believe to be true (only in this case it's qualified as fairly reasonable). Do you not see a dis-congruity in that? Isn't it possible and/or likely that for someone else the opposite generalization would seem fairly reasonable? For example to you law is generally complex. That may very well be true. But to some people a command-line or a circuit diagram is also something unfathomable. But a person that's not a programmer can be good with GNU/Unix tools! Or at building circuits! I agree your average person might not be, but it's an obvious disservice to the rest of society when people talk about it as something mystically complex.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
        I said "the vast majority", not all people. Also, while it's true that laws can be simple and to-the-point in some places, I doubt you can really say that "law must be at least as complex as its the subject matter" is an unreasonable generalisation on the whole.
ternaryoperator 12y ago
A well-known saying in legal circles: "A lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client."
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rhino369 12y ago
I won't argue that lawyers haven't sort of formed a cartel, but it's the licensing and degrees are what does it not complication of the law. But the law is complicated because the world is complicated. Any attempt to simply the law just transfers to the complication to the court to interpret the law during litigation / trial. Any intelligent man could figure out the law, but that is basically what lawyers are. Intelligent men who spend the time figuring out the law. And like anything, practice makes perfect. So sure, you could learn to interpret the law, but are you going to waste your time? There are also big reasons why you don't want to represent yourself. Objectivity is paramount. I do legal analysis for a living and I'd never trust me to do it myself. You have to be somewhat detached to accurately do it. Nobody who ever talked into a patent attorney's office ever thought their own patent was obvious. I do think that small claims court should be expanded to cover higher amounts. So that the judge can just streamline the process.
- anonbanker 12y ago
  Law is just another programming language to learn. All hackers, worried about legal retaliation in their mission to make/keep information free, should learn it. Unless you want to end up like Aaron Swartz.
  - rhino369 12y ago
    I've learned programming languages and the law; and I don't really find them all that similar. You get to define all your language and the logic is formal. I'd argue trying to be your lawyer is more like trying to be your own doctor. Don't do it unless you want to end up like Steve Jobs.
    - anonbanker 12y ago
      Everyone that claims to know the law seems unanimous in their wish that no outsider learn it, or die a painful death. Steve Jobs had a very strong understanding of law and commerce fwiw.
  - anonbanker 12y ago
joshuapants 12y ago
>There is no reason that an educated, intelligent man shouldn't be able to represent himself in most cases with fair preparation Yes there is. Even an educated, intelligent person has less practice at legal defense than a merely average lawyer. Statutes are also more complicated than you think. I work in an office that has a legal library, which is pretty rare these days as most places are moving to electronic sources. The sheer volume of statutes and precedents would shock you, and our legal library is on the small side since we don't deal with all areas of the law. If your life and livelihood are on the line, better to go with an expert professional than to do it yourself with no prior experience.

by hurin 12y ago

tptacek 12y ago

Fairness and simplicity are in tension with each other.

s_q_b 12y ago

A fair justice system is by necessity complex, and a complex system necessarily requires guidance from an expert.

hurin 12y ago
What does it mean to be an expert? The cartel-aspect is that it's not good enough to know the relevant law (it's not any harder to read legal documents than manuals) or to be able to emphasize it's relevance and logical coherence relative to the case. This is precisely the kind of mystical nonsense notion that I was referring to. In their view a qualified defense must be made by a lawyer precisely for the sake of it being made by a lawyer, and for preserving the power-structure of the institution.
- s_q_b 12y ago
  No. A qualified defense must be made by someone with requisite legal knowledge, and while not everyone with that knowledge must necessarily be an attorney, of course the courts use a law degree and the bar exam as heuristics. The simple fact that you think legal documents are no more difficult to understand than manuals is a perfect example of how woefully unprepared for the legal arena certain members of the general public are. It takes a long time to learn statutory law, case law, common law, constitutional law, regulatory law, and their interconnections about even a single subject, and it is assumed throughout that you will have knowledge of legal concepts that aren't contained in those documents. Is it possible to represent yourself and win? Yes. If you really know the law that well, you won't have a problem, even pro se. The issue is that many pro se litigants are like you. They hubristically believe the law is like an IKEA instruction booklet, advance wildly incorrect theories due to lack of foundational knowledge, end up wasting vast amounts of the court's time at taxpayer expense, and then bitterly complain that the judge didn't follow the law when they lose.
  - hurin 12y ago
    > The issue is that many pro se litigants are like you...hubristically believe...advance wildly incorrect theories Thank you for the ad-hominem attacks. Usually these come when the interlocutor has little left to say of merit. > A qualified defense must be made by someone with requisite legal knowledge. And the key part of this statement is the mystical belief that requisite legal knowledge is something intangible to the case and which defies normal logic. So you'll accept a guy working in a patent office solving a difficult problem in physics, but heaven forbid he should feel qualified to represent himself in court. >it is assumed throughout that you will have knowledge of legal concepts that aren't contained in those documents. More mysticism? You would be surprised how many lawyers I've talked to that would have failed out of a first semester course on formal logic. >advance wildly incorrect theories due to lack of foundational knowledge, end up wasting vast amounts of the court's time at taxpayer expense, and then bitterly complain that the judge didn't follow the law when they lose Actually I have had the occasion to defend myself in court. For what it's worth it took me three court appearances, because the prosecutor was completely oblivious to how groundless the case was; thus happily wasting three days of my economic productivity (which cost more than the fine would have) as well as tax payer money.
    - nmrm2 12y ago
      > So you'll accept a guy working in a patent office solving a difficult problem in physics, but heaven forbid he should feel qualified to represent himself in court. Citing Einstein as a prototypical example is somehow conceding the parent's point, don't you think? > You would be surprised how many lawyers I've talked to that would have failed out of a first semester course on formal logic. This I can believe; but then, law has very little to do with formal systems and the sort of informal "logic" used in legal reasoning is absolutely uninformed by anything but the first week or so of a standard intro to mathematical logic course (most legal theory/systems pre-date the advent of modern logic in the late 19th century).
      - hurin 12y ago
        > Citing Einstein as a prototypical example is somehow conceding the parent's point, don't you think? I'm not citing Einstein as a prototypical example by any means, but I'm citing the idea about how we verify knowledge in a subject. If a guy from a Burger King comes and says, hey I've got a result in theoretical physics, or hey hire me as a developer - we have a method to verify whether they can do those things in a practical way and this shouldn't require platitudes about complexity and history of jurisprudence etc. (or the equivalent for those fields). >This I can believe; but then, law has very little to do with formal systems and the sort of informal "logic" used in legal reasoning is absolutely uninformed by anything but the first week or so of a standard intro to mathematical logic course (most legal theory/systems pre-date the advent of modern logic in the late 19th century). Formal logic logic as far as reasoning about non-mathematical subjects is probably not that far from where it was in Aristotle's days. I don't know about the actual application of law - indeed your average jury may very well be swayed (I'll quote from yesterday): "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. We will show you how the defendant used the notorious hacker tool known as 'strings' to facilitate his vendetta against Lenovo." But that a Jury would be swayed by something like that and that it's the business of prosecution to make such arguments (hypothetically) is I think precisely in support of my point about the law. On the other hand the authors considered to be authorities Jurisprudence are, I think, very well informed in formal logic.
- summerdown2 12y ago
  In addition to the other points made below, I'd like to advance a further idea. An unqualified person may indeed be able to read legal documents and prepare themselves for taking on a legal case. But lawyers have had years of study in which their preparation has been legally challenged, followed by years of practice in which their preparation has been legally challenged. a) They not only know the law, but also the likely approaches an opponent might make to arguing against it. Forewarned is, somewhat, forearmed. But also. b) They probably end up very good judges of how prepared they are. I suggest this is a variant of the Dunning-Kruger effect. An untrained person might be able to study law and defend themself. I'm sure there are cases where it's easy and cases where it's hard. But, being unexperienced, they will not be good judges as to their chances of winning, what their best strategy is, or whether they have done sufficient prep to meet likely objections. i.e. more than anything else, experience lets people judge their own progress. A beginner would be clueless in this aspect.
sgift 12y ago
The moment you require guidance from an expert you've left the land of law and entered the land of interpretation, which is by definition never fair, because such a justice system lacks the basic properties of fair laws: clarity of provisions, determinedness of provisions and comprehensibility of provisions. Without these three things you have no justice, just law.
- s_q_b 12y ago
  The system of legal representation is older than our legal system itself, having its roots in ancient Rome. While law must be comprehensible by the general citizenry, this is constantly at odds with the complexity needed to support equally complex economic and social interactions. Edit in reply: >That is certainly correct, but not very insightful. Just because something is old it is not good. I mention the Roman legal system, as most legal requirements that have survived several millennia intact have extremely valid reasons. In this case, the reason is one that I have already elucidated: Human behavior is complex, and thus the law must be as well. To understand complex systems, most people need the assistance of a trained professional. As to your second point, do you have an alternate solution? Most people have plumbing too complex for them to repair, why should anyone expect a national legal system to be more simple than household plumbing? >If you cannot understand laws yourself you need legal guidance for everything you do... No, you don't. There is a third alternative, and it's what most people do. They hire counsel when engaging in high-stakes disputes, negotiations, or agreements. Second Edit: Rhino above ^ has certainly expressed my viewpoint most clearly and succinctly here.
  - sgift 12y ago
    > The system of legal representation is older than our legal system itself, having its roots in ancient Rome. That is certainly correct, but not very insightful. Just because something is old it is not good. Basically, what legal representation tries to solve is the problem that law makers want to make some laws which are no longer understandable by the general citizenry, usually for the reasons you've noted (complex interactions need complex laws(1)). So, to solve that fundamental problem people thought a while and then introduced legal representation as a solution, which created a new problem: It is a fake solution. To be a law-abiding citizen forces you to know what you are allowed to do and what you are not allowed to do. If you cannot understand laws yourself you need legal guidance for everything you do, which is simply unfeasable in reality(2). The alternative system used in reality is "well, I think I understand what's expected of me, so I'll just do it" ... which works 80% of the time and will bite you in the ass 20% of the time. These are usually the court cases where people are "100% certain" that "I didn't do anything wrong!" while the lawyers just think "Oh yes, you did. You did, you just didn't know. Welcome in hell." (1) At least that is usually assumed and the discussion will only get harder if we start questioning that assumption, so I'll stay with it for the moment. (2) Due to costs, time consumption and so on. Life would come to a grinding halt if people actually followed that model.
trevelyan 12y ago
Why is a fair justice system by necessity complex?
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  Because blanket generalisations do not work well, so you must be just as complex as society at large.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago

In any legal system, no matter how fair, a lawyer would be necessary.

hurin 12y ago
> Because blanket generalisations do not work well, > In any legal system, no matter how fair, a lawyer would be necessary. > so you must be just as complex as society at large. Do you see what I did there?
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  You're taking what I said out-of-context. Blanket legal generalisations don't work well. A lawyer is necessary because you need an expert in law's complexities. This is a fairly reasonable generalisation: the vast majority of people do not have sufficient knowledge of law to represent themselves well.
  - hurin 12y ago
    You say that certain generalizations (which you do not believe to be true) are inherently unreasonable. But you have no problem making a generalization about something you believe to be true (only in this case it's qualified as fairly reasonable). Do you not see a dis-congruity in that? Isn't it possible and/or likely that for someone else the opposite generalization would seem fairly reasonable? For example to you law is generally complex. That may very well be true. But to some people a command-line or a circuit diagram is also something unfathomable. But a person that's not a programmer can be good with GNU/Unix tools! Or at building circuits! I agree your average person might not be, but it's an obvious disservice to the rest of society when people talk about it as something mystically complex.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
      I said "the vast majority", not all people. Also, while it's true that laws can be simple and to-the-point in some places, I doubt you can really say that "law must be at least as complex as its the subject matter" is an unreasonable generalisation on the whole.

ternaryoperator 12y ago

A well-known saying in legal circles: "A lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client."

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rhino369 12y ago

I won't argue that lawyers haven't sort of formed a cartel, but it's the licensing and degrees are what does it not complication of the law. But the law is complicated because the world is complicated. Any attempt to simply the law just transfers to the complication to the court to interpret the law during litigation / trial. Any intelligent man could figure out the law, but that is basically what lawyers are. Intelligent men who spend the time figuring out the law. And like anything, practice makes perfect. So sure, you could learn to interpret the law, but are you going to waste your time? There are also big reasons why you don't want to represent yourself. Objectivity is paramount. I do legal analysis for a living and I'd never trust me to do it myself. You have to be somewhat detached to accurately do it. Nobody who ever talked into a patent attorney's office ever thought their own patent was obvious. I do think that small claims court should be expanded to cover higher amounts. So that the judge can just streamline the process.

anonbanker 12y ago
Law is just another programming language to learn. All hackers, worried about legal retaliation in their mission to make/keep information free, should learn it. Unless you want to end up like Aaron Swartz.
- rhino369 12y ago
  I've learned programming languages and the law; and I don't really find them all that similar. You get to define all your language and the logic is formal. I'd argue trying to be your lawyer is more like trying to be your own doctor. Don't do it unless you want to end up like Steve Jobs.
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    Everyone that claims to know the law seems unanimous in their wish that no outsider learn it, or die a painful death. Steve Jobs had a very strong understanding of law and commerce fwiw.
- anonbanker 12y ago

joshuapants 12y ago

>There is no reason that an educated, intelligent man shouldn't be able to represent himself in most cases with fair preparation Yes there is. Even an educated, intelligent person has less practice at legal defense than a merely average lawyer. Statutes are also more complicated than you think. I work in an office that has a legal library, which is pretty rare these days as most places are moving to electronic sources. The sheer volume of statutes and precedents would shock you, and our legal library is on the small side since we don't deal with all areas of the law. If your life and livelihood are on the line, better to go with an expert professional than to do it yourself with no prior experience.