So presumably, you think that the legal system is a dispensable part of civilised life? Right? We could all do happily without it?
Help me out here - I’m trying to work with you. I think with a little bit of effort this could be the stupidest analogy ever advanced on these boards, and this is a field where there’s some stiff competition. Strive! Advance! Be all you can be, Whack-a-Mole!
Analogies always have their shortcomings. As I already noted it was illustrative and fine for that.
That out of all this thread your last chance at cheap shots has devolved to hanging your hat on this most slender of points is telling.
If that’s all you got fine by me…clearly the rest of your arguments have gone down the shitter.
Mmm-hmm. Yours, unfortunately, has more shortcomings than a midgets’ bukkake party. You see, the idea with analogies is that they illustrate some flaw of reasoning by means of comparison. I said the legal system was broken in places, but largely great and of huge benefit to society. You said “yeah, like slavery.” Now, unless you are either willing to claim that slavery is an indispensable part of civilisation, or contend that a legal system is not, you don’t have an analogy - you’ve just got a thing that fell out of your mouth and is making you look stupid.
Anyway, I see you’ve declared yourself the winner. Well done, you. I would argue with more of your rubbish, but I confess I don’t actually know what your point is. Mine is that the legal system is like any field of human endeavour; great for the most part, broken in places and in need of constant improvement, just like everything else. Oh, and that lawyers aren’t all cunts, or even more likely to be cunts than anyone else. I find it remarkable that someone is demanding cites for this rather unambitious statement.
You, as best I can tell, are saying this:
And I have to say, I agree on all counts. So give us a hug. Or did you have some other point? Do you believe these four things mean we should all despise lawyers? Or make them our slaves and feed them fish eggs? There has to be more to it than this…
Fine, I’ll re-form the analogy a bit to make it more palatable to you.
You were making the point that there are good and bad points to the legal system but it seemed to take the stance that despite its flaws there is no need to get in much fuss about it because of those good points.
Ok…
In early years of the United States’ existence there were problems but also parts that were magnificent. Slavery of course was one of those problems.
To suggest it should just all be left well enough alone because there are magnificent parts is a bogus argument. It is right and proper that people took exceptional issue with slavery and argued for reform. They can do this without wanting to toss the whole of US society and government in the dustbin.
Rubbish? My cite of an American Bar Association publication (to name one) to refute points others brought up is rubbish? You have a weird definition of rubbish then.
And the argument has indeed wandered from the OP’s point which was calling out people for not being very happy with lawyers in general.
So I pointed out that they (lawyers) are part of a system that is fundamentally broken. A system they created and a system they seem largely, as a profession, content to let it remain as is. The conversation veered as people took issue with given points I brought up and so I defended those points. Seems a proper thing to do on the SDMB.
I think ivn1188’s behavior drives the point home of why lawyers in general can be despised. He is dismissive of all issues, very real issues, that plague the justice system. He is unrepentant of his disdain for the likes of “pro se morons”…nevermind that those “morons” have no other recourse than to represent themselves in most cases. His arrogance is on display for all right here in this thread.
Agreed. Where is that reform? Seen a lot happening on this count in the last several decades? If there has been then CITE it! Seems to me the charge needs to be led by lawyers (possibly via the ABA but some smaller group could crusade as well…some even do). No one more than they are aware of the particulars of the legal system’s operation and its flaws. Show me their serious efforts at lobbying legislatures for meaningful reform on the issues brought up in here. Show me their unrelenting efforts to educate the public on these issues. If they have been and I’ve missed it fine.
Certainly there are lawyers out there who point out issues and crusade for them. The ABA does release statements like I posted above. What I see is a lack of commitment to those principles. As a whole (yes some individuals work hard for reform and god bless em for it) they fail in this regard and it is failure for a lack of serious effort, serious combined effort, on these counts. The smaller groups/individuals that do work for reform are stymied somewhere along the line. I am willing to bet if the ABA threw its considerable weight behind these issues we’d see real change start to occur.
Heck, as I noted even DA’s could simply refuse to bring death penalty cases (opting instead for life in prison or whatever the law allows for in lieu of the death penalty). No legislature is needed to do that. They can do it on their own till the system is reformed. But they don’t despite glaring flaws in this area.
Add in things like effective justice really only being for those with money as I have noted over and over again. PD’s are woefully underfunded in comparison to the prosecutors. Access to the legal system is very difficult if you do not have money. As I said, justice for the rich, everyone else can go piss up a pole.
For these reasons the profession can be held in contempt with ivn1188 as their poster child.
Whoa, whoa, whoa nellie. Now you’re saying the United States is like the legal system. That’s a completely different analogy. You said slavery was like the legal system. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t know what your own analogy was, but come now; we all know it wasn’t this. This isn’t a stupid analogy any more, but the great thing is that it makes my point. The United States, even back in the days of slavery, was full of plenty of fine people, undeserving of despite. Funnily enough, one day some of them even got together and decided slavery was a bit of a problem, and fixed it (I am available for remedial classes on American civics, by the way). That made the United States a better place, but the people in it didn’t go to sleep one day as bastards, and wake up as heroes. Slavery was far, far worse than the problems of the legal system today, and yet it still did not condemn all contemporary Americans. Y’see?
So, well done on making the analogy better; shame it didn’t really say what you wanted it to. Bit of a recurring theme, that, innit?
And if someone had advanced such an argument, then you’d have a great point. But oh, dear. No-one did.
Again, we find you don’t know the difference between having a cite, and having an argument. Yes, you cited the ABA. Well done, pat on the head, have a biscuit. It doesn’t really help you to have done so, though, does it? Who do you think the ABA are; toilet cleaners who moonlight as regulators of the American legal profession? I hate to break it to you, but they are in fact lawyers. Arguing on your side of this issue. Oh, right, I see; they say it, but they’re not doing enough; as lawyers, they need merely click their fingers, and it shall be done. Cobblers, frankly. And again, more proof of your self-sustaining opinion; cherry-pick bad things, ignore the good, and when confronted with something uncontrovertibly good, say it’s not enough. And then you have the temerity to act surprised when lawyers find this annoying.
Look, I’m as staunch an opponent of the death penalty as you’ll find, but this is just retarded. Do you really want DAs, whose job is to prosecute the law as written, to unilaterally decide which laws they will and won’t worry about? What if they decide to ignore a law you care about? Where’s the accountability there? Is this really what you want our representative democracy to be: individuals deciding which laws get enforced, rather than our exhaustively elected legislatures?
Christ, if this is how you think problems are solved, maybe you really do need my civics classes.
Even if we allow that ivn1188 is a git (I think he’s pretty funny, myself), it does no such thing, any more than I’d like people to associate me with your analogising skills just because you post on the same messageboard. I think his rant, and attitude, are entirely justified. You, and people like you, seem entirely happy to condemn an entire profession on the basis of little more than half-baked rants and complete misunderstandings of how the legal system works (or even what the vast majority of lawyers actually do). It’s stupid. Really stupid, and if I were a lawyer I can imagine it would piss me off royally.
To take an analogy (follow along, you’ll see how this works), we might as well despise all programmers because Microsoft make crappy software. Profoundly stupid it would be, too, but every bit as justified as your pious condemnations.
The rest of your post is just you pontificating. No facts. You’re asking me to prove that lawyers aren’t bastards: no. You prove that they are. You’re the one with the stupid opinion, you justify it. You’ve gone out and found a few things you don’t like, and sat back, job done. That’s confirmation bias, I’m afraid. You handwave away the fact the ABA agrees with you on one of your points, or that there are lawyers aplenty working tirelessly against the death penalty; you ignore people like the ACLU, the EFF; all of them lawyers, campaigning to make you better off. Here in the UK there’s Liberty, working its butt off for the improvement of the country, the Bar Pro Bono unit, getting representation to people who can’t afford it, and many, many more.
And then in the middle there’s the vast majority of lawyers: regular Joes who go to work, do their work and come home. They’ve got no more control over indigent defence policy than you or I, and what the hell have you done for the poor recently? Hell, even my evil corporate lawyer friend spends a percentage of his time on pro bono work, as do all of his colleagues; it’s company policy, co-ordinated by an international group of lawyers.
Working for free, eh? Bastards.
I note again so far the best thing you have to berate me on is a one sentence analogy from a 200+ post thread. You must be so proud.
I also would note that it took a freaking WAR to end slavery. Did the SCOTUS? Nope (see Dred Scott). Did the law improve much post Civil War? Nope (see Plessy v. Ferguson). Took a war to overturn one and near 60 years and a massive civil rights movement to undo the other.
I read the constitution to have obviated the need for any of that yet the legal eagles of the day managed to pervert it to their own ends. Please point out why we should be proud of what the legal profession achieved here?
Your implication was lots of things have good and bad aspects to them and the legal profession is nothing special in this regard. I pointed out that it does have appalling parts and that it has good parts in no way merits an end to the discussion as you would seem to have it.
More to the point the legal profession goes to fundamental rights we possess. “Justice” is not something only for the wealthy. We are not talking about lacking a choice to have a steak or a hamburger here. The Constitution guarantees us the right to due process. I maintain the profession’s definition of what constitutes “due process” is shockingly broad. That as a profession they seem content with that is what it horrible about them. That such a fundamental right can be nerfed almost the the point of meaninglessness is something every American should be profoundly upset with.
At least I have facts, which I have repeatedly provided. All you have is a lot of hot air. You and others have systematically tried to hand wave and nitpick numbers and then get all whiny when I show your argument is provably full of shit.
You have jack-all of data or anything but your personal opinions on this issue. I have shown the dramatic disparity between PD and Prosecutor resources. Do you address that? Nope. You try and show it might not be quite so bad ignoring even if we take your assumptions it is still pretty fucking bad.
More, you focus on exceptionally narrow points (and lose even on those points) and ignore the bigger picture. It is lack of resources, it is very real lack of access to the justice system unless you are wealthy, it is the innocent being prosecuted, it is the undoing of constitutional protections.
Seriously, do you have a problem with the notion of “Justice for All”? Do you really see justice being done as a matter of course in all this? If you were somehow accused of a terrible crime and were unable to hire a private attorney would you be content with the Public Defender’s ability to represent you sufficiently (even assuming your PD does not fall asleep during your trial and does the best they can for you)?
Posting a piece of paper that espouses certain goals is a FAR cry from pursuing those goals. So they wrote a nifty little piece and doubtless stand behind it. Great! So where’s the beef?
If former president Bush talked about upholding American ideals but then undermines those ideals should I be happy because hey…he SAID they were important!
Actions speak louder than words.
Perhaps it escaped your notice but it is the DA’s ability to decide to impose the death penalty (or perhaps judges in some cases…not sure if it ever devolves to a jury to decide which penalty is imposed). If they (whoever has the choice) choose not to they are breaking NO laws. They can still prosecute and apply alternate sentencing (such as life in prison) as provided by their state laws unless I am missing a state that mandates the death penalty for certain crimes.
Using programs is not a fundamental right protected in the constitution. You writing a shitty program is not depriving me of any rights.
Rather big difference…I’d have thought you’d understand it.
But thanks for the shitty analogy, I’ll be sure to bring it up in every response to you from here on since it is clearly representative of your whole argument and it will behoove me to ignore everything else you have said.
Oh god…the irony!
The “few” things are profound things. I mean heck, just your basic, fundmental rights here. Nothing to get in a fuss about. May as well say that someone restricting your right to free speech is only “one” thing so hand wave it away. C’mon…that’s disingenuous even for you. How is it “confirmation bias” to identify a problem and then point it out?
I think that is properly termed “the banality of evil”.
And what I do or do not do to help the poor is of no consequence here. It is about a system that deprives the poor (and even the not so poor) from basic rights all citizens should enjoy.
Once again, glad you have swell lawyer friends. It is the profession I am on about.
And glad to see you found how to make a cite even if it is not terribly relevant. I already stipulated that there are some groups out there that seek to help.
I disagree though that the poor must rely on the good will of attorneys to provide what every American should have anyway. I am willing to bet the pro bono services come nowhere near meeting the actual need.
The majority of lawyers are no more nor less than facilitators of various forms of business transactions - as necessary, and as morally neutral, as accountants or any other sort of office type worker. Only a minority of lawyers actually do trial work, civil or criminal.
No-one goes on about how evil accountants are (though given the current spate of business problems, perhaps they should. 
).
The average day for the average big-firm lawyer is: review a contract between two businesses, see if the terms accurately reflect the allocation of risks between them, point out the potential dangers to the client.
This is relatively skilled work for which they will receive a reasonably good wage - but not, alas, as much as their clients, who actually manage the businesses in issue & make the strategic decisions. These fellows pay lawyers because the cost of not doing so - that is, in deals gone wrong because the terms were not understood and the dangers not appreciated - is too great to not pay them. In fact, most businesses have “in house” lawyers and only contract out more complex stuff to the specialists who work at the big firms.
In short, it makes no sense whatsoever to single out lawyers as somehow uniquely at fault for the existence of the problems that they solve, or for commanding high wages. They are only parts of the business machine, and I think something like them will always be necessary - as long as people make agreements to do stuff, someone has to understand them. These things are complicated not because lawyers make them so, but because they are inherently so; and people who figure out complex stuff will always be able to command a wage for that.
What, did you not read the rest of my post? There were 830 words in it. Yes, your comparison of law to slavery is the most amusingly mockable bit of your drivel, but I said a lot of other things, and most of the words weren’t too challenging, even for you. You’re clearly not reading them, though, because here you go again:
Well done, but oh no, what’s this?
Oh dear. I explicitly said this didn’t mean it was an end to it. What I said was that this means that lawyers, just like everyone else, deserve judging as individuals. If you’re not even going to do me the courtesy of responding to what I say, rather than what you think I say, then fuck it, frankly.
I did like this, though:
Ah, right; so actual lawyers actually working for free (or against capital punishment, or against curtailment of liberties) speak louder than a blowhard on the internet who read a Fortune article once and thinks he’s a Constitutional crusader. Yeah, I see how that works. Thanks!
You have a reading problem. Go read the whole thread.
Thread winner. Nothing anyone says can top this.
We also need an emoticon for “making jerk-off motion in the air while simultaneously rolling one’s eyes and sighing, then shaking one’s head in disbelief”.
It’s much faster than pointing out the myriad flaws with the bobsey twins’ choleric crusade for great justice.
This is amusing, Dead Badger. Each time you point to the yawning gap between their premises and conclusion, they merely walk over it Wile E. Coyote-like, refusing to look down.
Here’s an exercise for you, Whack-a-Mole or Second Stone. See if you can state your premises and conclusions as single sentences following from each other. Like this:
Some lawyers are bad.
Some rules and conventions governing attorneys are bad.
Some current court jurisprudence is incorrect.
Therefore, most lawyers are evil.
Or whatever it is you think your argument is.
Many lawyers ignore the rules of ethics.
Many rules and conventions are ignored by courts.
(I don’t have fundamental problem with jurisprudence I disagree with. (Sigh, assuming it isn’t “Nazi” jurisprudence.))
Therefore I don’t like the legal profession and legal system.
As for the Wile E. Coyote reference, it’s perfect. The rules of physics are suspended for the roadrunner, but double enforced for the poor coyote.
I said it was the “best” thing you had to berate me on. Not the “only” thing.
Talk about needing a class in reading fundamentals…
You said (bolding mine):
*"The legal system, just like any other human endeavour, is in parts broken horribly, in parts shocking, but also in parts magnificent, and is a huge contributor to our current almost unimaginably comfortable mode of existence. But because you went to a course once and found out how unsustainable capital punishment is (and hey, I agree), we’re all expected to listen attentively as you bloviate on and on and on as if you were the first person to notice that sometimes bad things happen in courts.
If all you want to prove is that shit things happen in the legal profession, fine. But you’ve got a lot more work to do before you can prove it’s even remotely unusual in this regard, or that we should colour our prior opinions of lawyers because of it."
*
“Individuals”? I see you mention the “profession” as I was on about and have repeated numerous times.
“Explicitly” not an end to it? You mean the part where you tell me I have a lot more work to do after you pined about listening to my bloviating? Hardly a motivator for further discussion.
I have shown it is unusual in this regard. Unless you care to point to another profession that is as inextricably tied with fundamental rights as the judicial system is and then limits or denies those rights as a matter of course.
Again you and the hand waving.
You with fuck all for support for his arguments. ZERO. None. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
Of the two of us I see you ranting, blowing your opinion all over with nothing to back it up. Don’t like the Fortune article? Fine. How about the pile of other cites I provided?
Sorry they are inconvenient to you. Face it, you are pissed you got called on your bullshit. You’ve got nothing and you damn well know it. I have called on you and others numerous times to provide some cites that debunk my central points. If you had them you would have busted me with them long ago.
Your “arguments” tell all that needs to be said on this. You have retreated into ad hominem attacks, nitpicking very minor points that change nothing, mischaracterizations and minimizing data inconvenient to you as worthless despite numerous sources and all of them painting the same picture.
You have nothing to back your shit up and your verbal flailing does not hide that fact although I can see why you’d wish it did.
Translation:
You’ve got nothing…
Thanks for playing though. Better luck next time.
I know I asked for short sentences, and you’ve obliged. Thank you. But can you be a little more specific without adding too many words?
By “many” do you mean, roughly, 1/1000, 1/100, 1/10, 1/2, 3/4? Also, what rules of ethics are you talking about–the ABA rules? When you speak of courts ignoring rules, can you be a bit more specific?
Also, please try to state your premises so that each one can be supported by evidence. I assume, for example, that you don’t have a piece of evidence which states that some percentage of lawyers violate the ethical rules. So, please state the premises that get you to that conclusion.
So then, you’re looking for a new career, right? Because it seems odd that someone who despises lawyers and the legal profession as much as you do would work as an attorney. Seriously- why do you even practice law?
Or is it a weird self-loathing thing, like closeted Gay Republicans? 
Therefore lawyers, as a profession, have an image problem.
This is your problematic premise. Lawyers didn’t create a system in which having money leads to having greater legal resources. Capitalism did that. In a Capitalist society, you’ll never be able to give rich and poor equal access to legal resources. But, lawyers have made it markedly fairer. Securing the guaranteed free assistance of counsel in criminal cases was the work of lawyers. Creating an ethical system that strongly encourages pro bono work was a creation of lawyers. You talk about unequal accesss to constitutional remedies, but the premier constitutional law organization in the country (the ACLU) operates on an entirely pro bono basis. Indeed, almost every battle that has been fought against the inherent problems of justice in a capitalist society has been fought by lawyers–often against the prevailing majority sentiment at the time.
You’ve stitched together a patchwork argument of specific examples of systemic problems, unethical lawyers, and specific court rulings you don’t like and concluded that lawyers are bad. But the systemic problems aren’t the fault of lawyers, and indeed thousands of lawyers across the country are trying to fix them. And the other two patches in the quilt are irrelevant to the conclusion.
Lawyers didn’t “create” the laws any more than you did - they work within a system that has existed for hundreds of years and changes gradually as a result of, essentially, political processes (legislation) and the variations that arise out of court cases (the common law). Many do in fact work to change the system, through political lobbying, though admittedly in different ways - and non-lawyers do this as well. The poor are discriminated against in all sorts of ways - by lack of access to services and resources. That’s what being “poor” means. Lawyers are not to blame for the fact that some are rich and others are poor - any more than all of us are (if “blame” there is).
If you are going to blame lawyers for creating “the system” at least be consistent and praise lawyers for creating the very notion of “fundamental rights” and “the Constitution”.
The problem is not that “lawyers, as a profession, have a [justified] image problem” - it is that certain people are using “lawyers” as a symbol of all that they find troubling about the society they live in, like the existence of social inequality. To the rest of us, this sounds rather simple-minded to say the least.
While true on the face of it I have an issue with it when it comes to handing out justice. It is not that some get steaks and others hamburger. I believe it is intrinsic to our notion of society. “Justice for All” and “Justice is Blind” and all that jazz.
Yet this is markedly not the case.
Indeed and kudos for getting it in the Constitution! However it is here I depart with you on this. It is a seeming sense of, “I can sleep well tonight…I done good with this” of attorneys in general that grates. So they secured free assistance of counsel. Fantastic (really)! But that counsel generally sucks (either through no fault of their own due to lack of resources or actually do really suck and fall asleep on their clients). Like handing an apple with a rotten core to some poor person and feeling good that you fed them.
So unfortunately this wonderful piece of our Constitution is rather undermined in practice isn’t it? Just to add salt to the wound is the legal system allowing an attorney to sleep on the job and calling that effective counsel for the person he was representing. Huh? I’d say he should be fired and at least suspended if not disbarred for that and his client get a better attorney. That somehow the legal system allows such a travesty through does not help my or others impression of it one bit. I am sure we could find plenty of other examples albeit perhaps not as egregious.
Great (again really)! Glad lawyers do pro bono work. Of course it is not unusual for Americans to volunteer their time to this or that and often give assistance in whatever they are trained at (accountants, doctors, computer people, etc.).
My point is access to the justice system should not be premised on charity. Got a problem? Need a lawyer? Just hope one takes pity on you and helps. Sounds lousy to me and is another reason why people are not fond of lawyers. It is not uncommon for poor to accept handouts yet despise the people giving them the handout.
ACLU is great. I believe I was talking about the profession as a whole. I agree some lawyers/groups of lawyers are swell.
I think it needs to be taken as a whole rather than being described as a patchwork. A shitty PD who falls asleep may be anecdotal, the underlying flaws with the system that generate such results is the real problem. The system which does not discipline such a member is a problem. The system which sends some schlub down the river anyway after denying him basic rights is a problem.
Some are trying to fix the problems…great. Yet why aren’t attorneys even effectively policing their own to allow sleeping lawyers (and there is more of that than the one guy I cited)? Surely the Bar is responsible for its own rules yes?
Can you understand that such things do not inspire confidence?