# anti-lawyer idiots **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 15, 2009, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230 "2009-04-15T22:34:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/261 "2009-04-23T17:11:00Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > Secondly, prison overpopulation is due to stupid things like mandatory minimums for a little weed and good detection, not because a significant portion of people represented by P.D.s are innocent. Who do you think writes mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines? The legislatures of our great nation are not staffed by ice cream truck drivers, bricklayers or physicians. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/262 "2009-04-23T18:01:26Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Such harassing lawsuits are common. My roommate works in the pharmaceutical industry and he told me they use lawsuits as a matter of course when their patents expire. Once the patent expires the manufacturer sues anyone who tries to make a generic alternative. They invariably lose those cases but get to effectively keep their patent for years longer which is more valuable than the cost they incur fighting a bogus case. You and I get to pay higher prices for drugs as a result. That sounds really bad. There should be a law against it. Oh that’s right, there is. And why would the generic company stop manufacturing the good when they are invariably going to win the law suit? Oh that’s right, they won’t. Unless the patent holder gets an injunction, which they won’t, because they are invariably going to lose the case. There are problems in the patent system, but making ones up isn’t very helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/263 "2009-04-23T18:04:06Z")
**RNATB:** > [@](#): > > The legislatures of our great nation are not staffed by ice cream truck drivers, bricklayers or physicians. Neither are they composed entirely of lawyers, so **blame the fucking legislators** who passed the ridiculous laws and leave the rest of us who acknowledge and oppose the ridiculousness of those laws out of it entirely. Jesus Christ. Have you _heard_ of Venn diagrams? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/264 "2009-04-23T18:58:00Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > This, by the way, is not a clarion call to complacency, just to perspective. In the US there must be hundreds of thousands of pieces of litigation brought each year. In those circumstances, tens or dozens or even hundreds of anecdotes don’t mean much along the way to the grand conclusions advanced by **Mole** and **Stone**. I never suggested that _my_ personal conclusions are _grand_. What a load of hooey. I don’t like lawyers in general. There are some individual lawyers that I like. There are some judges that I like. We’ve already established that there are no scientific surveys of the whole system, which means that we must rely on individual examples in forming our opinions. Millions of Americans have formed our opinions about the legal profession through such personal experiences. Some like the profession, millions don’t. That doesn’t make it right or wrong. It makes it an opinion. I think that the OP, the closest he/she has come to stating a case is that on balance the system and lawyers are alright. I disagree. The reasons have been stated earlier. I think the profession is entirely too complacent. There are no studies is enough complacency. Ordinarily I do not point out that I am a civil litigation and trials (and occasionally appellate) lawyer. It does not ordinarily add to the weight of my posts. I make an exception here because a lot of my personal opinion is based on over two decades of experience dealing with lawyers. Mostly representing clients, occasionally acting as a pro tem judge or mediator or arbitrator and long in the past as an employee of other lawyers. I am not simply spouting unsupported prejudices, I have biases built on years of experience. I treat opposing counsel as honorable until I find out otherwise, which is way too often. I do think that there should be comprehensive studies on the legal system and lawyers. It is a very important function of government. The complete lack of such studies is not an accident: it would form the basis for a call for major reforms and the interested parties do not want to do that. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/265 "2009-04-23T19:44:23Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > I never suggested that _my_ personal conclusions are _grand_. What a load of hooey. I don’t like lawyers in general. There are some individual lawyers that I like. There are some judges that I like. We’ve already established that there are no scientific surveys of the whole system, which means that we must rely on individual examples in forming our opinions. Millions of Americans have formed our opinions about the legal profession through such personal experiences. Some like the profession, millions don’t. That doesn’t make it right or wrong. It makes it an opinion. > > I think that the OP, the closest he/she has come to stating a case is that on balance the system and lawyers are alright. I disagree. The reasons have been stated earlier. I think the profession is entirely too complacent. There are no studies is enough complacency. > > Ordinarily I do not point out that I am a civil litigation and trials (and occasionally appellate) lawyer. It does not ordinarily add to the weight of my posts. I make an exception here because a lot of my personal opinion is based on over two decades of experience dealing with lawyers. Mostly representing clients, occasionally acting as a pro tem judge or mediator or arbitrator and long in the past as an employee of other lawyers. I am not simply spouting unsupported prejudices, I have biases built on years of experience. I treat opposing counsel as honorable until I find out otherwise, which is way too often. > > I do think that there should be comprehensive studies on the legal system and lawyers. It is a very important function of government. The complete lack of such studies is not an accident: it would form the basis for a call for major reforms and the interested parties do not want to do that. Heh I’ve been a lawyer for years as well and guess what - like the majority of our tribe, I’m _not a litigator_. Maybe you _litigators_ are in fact all assholes - I dunno; but most lawyers are _not litigators_, which is a point you are missing. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/266 "2009-04-23T21:29:14Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Somebody has to love John Woo… [John Woo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Woo) is awesome and well loved. [John Yoo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo), not so much. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/267 "2009-04-23T23:05:03Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Heh I’ve been a lawyer for years as well and guess what - like the majority of our tribe, I’m _not a litigator_. Maybe you _litigators_ are in fact all assholes - I dunno; but most lawyers are _not litigators_, which is a point you are missing. 😃 I had heard that there are such things as “transactional” lawyers, I meet them as often as I see beasts with one horn, such as unicorns, narwhals, rhinoceroses, etc. I truly believe that they exist and have licenses to practice law. I was unaware that this encompassed most lawyers. And yes, the majority of litigators are assholes, for lack of a less accurate term. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/268 "2009-04-24T13:44:03Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > **RNATB:** > Neither are they composed entirely of lawyers, so **blame the fucking legislators** who passed the ridiculous laws and leave the rest of us who acknowledge and oppose the ridiculousness of those laws out of it entirely. > > Jesus Christ. Have you _heard_ of Venn diagrams? They are composed mostly of lawyers, and they all do the same stupid shit. Personally, I don’t have a problem with lawyers. However, if somebody has a problem with the way the law works, who the hell else is to blame? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/269 "2009-04-24T14:10:36Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > I had heard that there are such things as “transactional” lawyers, I meet them as often as I see beasts with one horn, such as unicorns, narwhals, rhinoceroses, etc. I truly believe that they exist and have licenses to practice law. I was unaware that this encompassed most lawyers. > > And yes, the majority of litigators are assholes, for lack of a less accurate term. Oh, they exist - as in-house counsel to every major company in the country, for example; doing taxes, reviewing contracts, dealing with regulations, registering intellectual property and generally conducting business. In-court lawyering is merely the tip of the iceburg. I do not have handy statistics available, but just look at major law firms - “litigation” is only _one_ department in the general run of your average law firm. Generally, a large firm will have several practice areas or departments: “litigation” will be one, but then there several others, such as business or commercial law, intellectual property, tax, real estate. Now some of those may involve a certain amount of litigation, but that is generally handled by a few specialists - the majority of big-firm lawyers never see the inside of a courtroom (or only very rarely). Just think it through logically. Every major deal must be “lawyered” but very few of them are ever litigated. The number of lawyers needed to facilitate transactions that do _not_ go to court far outnumber the number of lawyers needed to deal with dispute resolution where things have broken down to the point where negotiations and agreements cannot resolve differences, let alone dealing with accidents and the like. This is one reason why the anti-lawyering folks are, as it were, talking out of there asses. They don’t know what most lawyers actually **do**. And that evidently includes some lawyers - some who specialize in litigation such as yourself, who think that lawyers dealing with transactions are as rare as unicorns, when in fact they are quite ubiquitous in business and industry. When most folks think of “lawyers” they think of courtroom antics and famous lawsuits; or they think of the criminal justice system. But such, while exciting, is only a part of lawyering. The other part is, if you like, keeping the wheels of our business culture moving - a role shared with other specialists, such as accountants. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/270 "2009-04-24T15:59:56Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Who do you think writes mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines? The legislatures of our great nation are not staffed by ice cream truck drivers, bricklayers or physicians. > > … > > They are composed mostly of lawyers, and they all do the same stupid shit. Personally, I don’t have a problem with lawyers. > > However, if somebody has a problem with the way the law works, who the hell else is to blame? Perhaps the starting point should be to, I don’t know, do a bit of research? Which reveals that the American Bar Association has consistently opposed mandatory minimum sentences and has called on the federal, state and territorial governments to repeal them. See, for example, the [Testimony of The Honorable Patricia M. Wald, Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (Retired), Former Judge, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, On behalf of the American Bar Association, Before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,Washington, D.C., March 3, 2006](http://www.abanet.org/poladv/letters/crimlaw/060303testimony_wald.pdf) [**pdf alert**]. > [@](#): > > In response to Justice Kennedy’s concerns, the ABA established a commission to investigate the state of sentencing and corrections in the United States, and to make recommendations on how to correct the problems Justice Kennedy had identified. The Justice Kennedy Commission after studying these issues reported to the 2004 Annual Meeting a series of policy recommendations that have been hailed as providing a blueprint for sentencing and corrections reform. In particular, the Justice Kennedy Commission called upon states, territories and the federal government to repeal mandatory minimum sentence statutes. The recommendations were overwhelmingly approved by the ABA House of Delegates. > > The ABA’s opposition to mandatory minimum sentencing is longstanding. Its 1994 Standards for Criminal Justice on Sentencing, in whose formulation I participated, state unequivocally that “A legislature should not prescribe a minimum term of total confinement for any offense.” Standard 18-3.21(b). In addition, Standard 18-6.1 (a) directs that “[t]he sentence imposed should be no more severe than necessary to achieve the societal purpose or purposes for which it is authorized.” This standard goes on to say that “[t]he sentence imposed in each case should be the minimum sanction that is consistent with the gravity of the offense, the culpability of the offender, the offender’s criminal history, and the personal characteristics of an individual offender that may be taken into account.” These standards balance respect for the role of the judge in calibrating the severity of the punishment due in each case, with a need to avoid disparity and reduce levels of severity overall. > > The ABA has also expressed concern about the racially discriminatory impact of mandatory minimum sentencing, particularly in connection with the differential penalties for trafficking in crack and powder cocaine. As early as 1995, the ABA called for the elimination of “current differences in sentencing based upon drug quantity for offenses involving crack versus powder cocaine.” The report accompanying this resolution noted that African Americans were disproportionately prosecuted and sentenced under the harsh federal crack cocaine laws, and thus were likely to serve substantially more time in prison for cocaine offenses than whites. > > Following receipt of the Justice Kennedy Commission report in 2004, the ABA again urged the repeal of mandatory minimum sentence statutes as well as other steps to eliminate unjustified racial and ethnic disparities. The ABA reasserted its opposition to mandatory minimum sentences in the policy it adopted in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). It urged Congress to take several steps to assure fair, effective and just federal sentencing practices, including expanded sentencing ranges and increased judicial discretion in departing from those ranges. (My underlining; citations omitted.) Lawyers don’t make the law. Legislatures do, filled with representatives elected by the people. Calling for mandatory minimums gets “tough on crime” politicians elected, regardless of their professional backgrounds. That’s where mandatory minimums come from, not lawyers. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/271 "2009-04-24T16:36:16Z")
**RNATB:** > [@](#): > > They are composed mostly of lawyers, and they all do the same stupid shit. Personally, I don’t have a problem with lawyers. First, the post to which I was responding explicitly blamed lawyers for harsh drug laws and stupid sentencing guidelines. Not legislatures, not politicians, not lawyers-who-are-politicians-and-who-voted-for-the-harsh-drug-laws-and-stupid-sentencing-guidelines,\* but lawyers. That’s fucking stupid. That’s like blaming white people for the continuing vitality of _Roe v. Wade_ because the Supreme Court is made up mostly of white people. Second, when you say “they are composed mostly of lawyers,” are you talking about state legislatures as well as federal? Do you have data to support this? And are you counting any politician who happens to have a law degree as a “lawyer,” whether or not they’ve ever practiced law? Third, when you say “they all do the same stupid shit,” who is the “they” you’re referring to? Legislatures? Lawyers in legislatures? If a legislature passes a stupid law, but over half of the legislators with law degrees vote against the law, are you going to blame the lawyers? What if forty percent of the lawyers in the legislature vote against the law? Thirty percent? What if one legislature composed mostly of lawyers passes a stupid law and another legislature composed mostly of lawyers rejects the same stupid law? At what point do you realize that your beef isn’t with lawyers, it’s with people who pass stupid laws? Come to that, at what point do you acknowledge that having a law degree might actually make someone better equipped to realize that a law is stupid, to recognize the ways in which it’s stupid, or to figure out how to make it less stupid? > [@](#): > > However, if somebody has a problem with the way the law works, who the hell else is to blame? Oh, lordy. We have this thing called a federal constitutional republic, see, and the great thing about it is that lots and lots of different people have input into the way the law works, and blame gets diffused all up and down the line. Blame voters. Blame non-voters. Blame lobbyists. Blame interest groups. Blame political parties. Blame legislators. Blame staffers. Blame advisors. Blame ballot measures. Blame town councils. Blame congressional districting. Blame the president. Blame the governors. Blame mayors. Blame the county seat. Blame the agency heads. Blame the agencies. Blame the regulatory bodies. Blame the people who write regulations. Blame the people who implement regulations. Blame law enforcement. Blame magistrates. Blame judges. Blame juries. Blame law clerks. Blame law firms. Blame prosecutors. Blame public defenders. Blame plaintiffs. Blame defendants. Blame Valerie Plame. Blame big business. Blame small business. Blame academia. Blame the market. Blame the Constitution. Blame the Framers. Blame the Puritans. Blame the church. Blame the media. Blame the message. Blame spokespeople. Blame spin doctors. Blame the system. Blame the dissidents. Blame the agitators. Blame the Peter Principle. Blame cronyism. Blame classism. Blame shadowy cabals. Blame the status quo. Blame standard operating procedure. Blame institutional inertia. Blame society. Blame laziness, blame self-interest, blame greed, blame corner-cutting and cognitive biases and an ill-developed capacity for critical reflection, if you want. But don’t single out **lawyers** as some undifferentiated mass and blame them for those things, because person by person they’re no more or less susceptible to them than anyone else. - And certainly not the United States Sentencing Commission and the various state sentencing commissions – which are not part of the legislature (although they are composed of lawyers) and which, contrary to your post, are the bodies that actually draft the sentencing guidelines. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230/272 "2009-04-24T17:06:55Z")
> [@Northern Piper](#): > > Perhaps the starting point should be to, I don’t know, do a bit of research? Which reveals that the American Bar Association has consistently opposed mandatory minimum sentences and has called on the federal, state and territorial governments to repeal them. I thought we had long established that the American Bar Association opposing something merely proves the problem is real, and actually their fault. Their opposition condemns them - mere words are insufficient. They should be disembowelling themselves on the steps of the Capitol, at the very minimum. Honestly, some of you guys are so politically naïve. Is anyone ever “embowelled”? Are we all? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lawyer-idiots/493230.md?page=13)