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What's causing the prices to be so high? Is it the complexity of U.S. law? Would it help if you had 5 pages laws instead of 500 pages laws, or would that make t

What's causing the prices to be so high? Is it the complexity of U.S. law? Would it help if you had 5 pages laws instead of 500 pages laws, or would that make things worse? (more room for loopholes) I'm inclined to believe simpler laws would help, though, because a lawyer wouldn't have to know tens of thousands of pages of laws by heart (or close to it), or at least wouldn't have to research tens of thousands of pages. Would having to pay if you lose help, too? I imagine there would be fewer lawsuits then. I don't have any data to back it up, but it feels like the U.S. has the most lawsuits/capita. Other countries where you have to pay if you lose don't have that many. Anyway, it definitely doesn't feel fair that you need hundreds of thousands of dollars for a good defense. That's why most people tend to take the plea deal even if they are not guilty of the charges they bring, or if they are "guilty" but only through some twisted interpretations of the law and the prosecutors, which could be invalidated in a Court, but they can't risk it (especially when the prosecutors tend to charge them with 10 different offenses and 30 years in prison for the least violent of crimes just to scare them into taking the 6 months in prison plea deal). The U.S. prosecutors seem to be acting exactly like patent trolls - or the mafia: "We won't take you to Court if you just pay this small sum - or go to prison for this small amount of time."

netheril96 11y ago
From my limited understanding, the US has rather simple statutory laws. In other words, the legislature only promulgates 5 pages of law. But given that reality is complex, these laws cannot cover all the cases. So the judicial branch makes certain decisions themselves, and these decisions become binding to later and lower courts (a.k.a precedents). These precedent based laws are very complicated and amount to 500 pages. So, I guess your idea won't work. Either the legislature thinks up front and publishes 500 pages, or the courts have to fill in the blanks between page 5 and page 500 themselves.
dragonwriter 11y ago
What causes the prices to be high is supply and demand driven by a combination of wealth inequality and frequency of legal action. There are people with enough money, and enough at stake, to offer the best attorneys lots of money, therefore quality legal services are quite expensive.
roel_v 11y ago
120k ~= 100 days of work for a reasonably skilled attorney who know about the (very niche) topic, including office costs (which in turn include the salary of the secretary, stamps etc). Or 150 days of work if it's split between a lawyer and some paralegals. At this point one might object that lawyers make too much money, but then I'd like to say that most everybody on this site working for a big company, or working for their own, costs this much or charges this much (or should charge as much, if they're 'professionals' and not 'I can set up Wordpress'-style workers). Also, let's say that there are no expenses, i.e. only lawyers who live close to wherever the cases are heard (no plane tickets, no hotels), that all proceeding are in the same location, that the defendant is held somewhere close as well, that everybody working the case drives cars that run on air etc. So then we have ~ 6 months, for a single person with some part-time help to do the menial stuff, to research the case, prepare all briefs, do all trial prep work (I don't know anything about this case but let's say you want to call 3 character witnesses. That's a week right there just selecting them, convincing them to come, prepping them, filing the paperwork etc.); to do the PR; to work with other stakeholders; the actual proceedings (which might span several court sessions - motion for this and that, pre-trial hearing(s), the actual trial, etc. I think it's clear that a single person can't do all of this in 6 months. It's just what things cost in the real world. But hey, it could have been worse, you could've gone to court in Europe - in which case you'd get to pay between 15 and 25% VAT on top of it (probably not in all European countries, before someone jumps on that).
- roel_v 11y ago
  Well look at that after I hit 'reply', the top post is 'estimate cost for your apps'! It looks like one can buy a legal defense for a highly complex case with world-wide attention for the cost of 2 medium-sized iOS apps, with only 'basic' level of finish, and no more than some simple sign up and in-app purchase functionality!
JackFr 11y ago
It's not the pages of laws, the common law renders relevant the judgement in thousands of prior cases. In many cases what you're paying for is not rhetorical and theatrical flourish (to sway the jury), but the specialized knowledge and application of prior rulings (to sway the judge).

netheril96 11y ago

From my limited understanding, the US has rather simple statutory laws. In other words, the legislature only promulgates 5 pages of law. But given that reality is complex, these laws cannot cover all the cases. So the judicial branch makes certain decisions themselves, and these decisions become binding to later and lower courts (a.k.a precedents). These precedent based laws are very complicated and amount to 500 pages. So, I guess your idea won't work. Either the legislature thinks up front and publishes 500 pages, or the courts have to fill in the blanks between page 5 and page 500 themselves.

dragonwriter 11y ago

What causes the prices to be high is supply and demand driven by a combination of wealth inequality and frequency of legal action. There are people with enough money, and enough at stake, to offer the best attorneys lots of money, therefore quality legal services are quite expensive.

roel_v 11y ago

120k ~= 100 days of work for a reasonably skilled attorney who know about the (very niche) topic, including office costs (which in turn include the salary of the secretary, stamps etc). Or 150 days of work if it's split between a lawyer and some paralegals. At this point one might object that lawyers make too much money, but then I'd like to say that most everybody on this site working for a big company, or working for their own, costs this much or charges this much (or should charge as much, if they're 'professionals' and not 'I can set up Wordpress'-style workers). Also, let's say that there are no expenses, i.e. only lawyers who live close to wherever the cases are heard (no plane tickets, no hotels), that all proceeding are in the same location, that the defendant is held somewhere close as well, that everybody working the case drives cars that run on air etc. So then we have ~ 6 months, for a single person with some part-time help to do the menial stuff, to research the case, prepare all briefs, do all trial prep work (I don't know anything about this case but let's say you want to call 3 character witnesses. That's a week right there just selecting them, convincing them to come, prepping them, filing the paperwork etc.); to do the PR; to work with other stakeholders; the actual proceedings (which might span several court sessions - motion for this and that, pre-trial hearing(s), the actual trial, etc. I think it's clear that a single person can't do all of this in 6 months. It's just what things cost in the real world. But hey, it could have been worse, you could've gone to court in Europe - in which case you'd get to pay between 15 and 25% VAT on top of it (probably not in all European countries, before someone jumps on that).

roel_v 11y ago
Well look at that after I hit 'reply', the top post is 'estimate cost for your apps'! It looks like one can buy a legal defense for a highly complex case with world-wide attention for the cost of 2 medium-sized iOS apps, with only 'basic' level of finish, and no more than some simple sign up and in-app purchase functionality!

JackFr 11y ago

It's not the pages of laws, the common law renders relevant the judgement in thousands of prior cases. In many cases what you're paying for is not rhetorical and theatrical flourish (to sway the jury), but the specialized knowledge and application of prior rulings (to sway the judge).