As Northern Piper said, what they lack in competence they make up for in persistence, obsessionality and a general unwillingness to be told anything.
This bloke was prima facie very well qualified as a scientist, just not as a forensic DNA expert. He thought the world worked according to the rules by which the Sherlock Holmes universe runs. All this coupled with the fact that courts tend to place low barriers to access (for good reason) means these guys can pound out huge documents that descend to an excruciating level of detail that miss the point.
In the case I was talking about, this guy would put in a huge report, to which we would respond. This just attracted another huge report, which forced an adjournment. This sort of thing went on and on. The court has delivered a scathing judgment about him, which would give anyone with insight pause for thought, but my guess is that this will just result in another round of appeals. I have no doubt that we will be in the High Court (the equivalent of SCOTUS) by the end of the year. The actual murder involved was committed in 1983. This case will hound me till my retirement I suspect.
I used to have this sigline which seems to have been lost somewhere in board changes which was a comment made by Pat Keane QC (**Noel ** knows who he is) to the Supreme Court about the behaviour of a particular plaintiff in person. It was about his (the plaintiff’s) extraordinary talent for spouting endless streams of quisling objection to irrelevant detail, without ever managing to come to grips with any key issue whatsoever.
I can’t recall the exact words, now. It became a catchphrase myself and various other associates in our firm used to throw at each other when we’d had a couple.
I agree with Stoid here. The distinction between advice and information is very clear.
Her reasons for asking for information are very clear - she has no other options because she can’t afford to pay a lawyer. The worst that can happen if she blows her case is that she loses the lawsuit, and as it is she stands to lose it anyway because she can’t afford to pay for a lawyer.
All those who keep advising her to hire a lawyer are either ignoring her statement or think she’s lying. And if she’s not going to hire a lawyer anyway, there’s no reason to abuse her over the fact that she’s trying to do it on her own.
Guys, I get it so no need to rehash. Yes, you lawyers have years of training and experience and no non-lawyer could ever hope to approach your level of understanding of the legal process. Since she’s representing herself, Stoid will most likely lose the case, since the other side has a lawyer. OK. But representing herself is her only option since she can’t afford a lawyer, so there’s no point in haranguing her about and ignoring her request.
If lawyers feel that they can’t give information because that would constitute advice under some Bar standard, that seems strange, but maybe it is. I don’t know. But that has not been the focus of this thread or the one that spawned it. The focus has been on “how dare you think that you, a mere non-lawyer, can possibly do what we lawyers have spent years training in order to do”, which is completely misplaced, as above. So ISTM that the title of this thread is apt.
I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve used their services. (I got value for money.)
Based purely on Stoid’s posts in the two linked threads, she comes across as deeply upset (by some situation, which she needs to take to court to rectify) and determined to take it out on lawyers.
The lawyers come across as calm professionals, who not only know how best to present a case, but also how the law works.
I don’t know how feasible it is to get the services of a lawyer free where Stoid is, but I think she should have spent some of her energy doing that (or earning money to pay them) rather than diving in to court as an amateur.
I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick here. Yes, her reasons for asking for information are very clear – she wants to use that information in order to make decisions regarding her legal position. That’s exactly why lawyers can’t give her the information, because that information is essentially legal advice. It’s not arrogance.
That’s the worst that can happen to her. The worst that can happen to a lawyer who “simply gives her information” is that Stoid sues him or her for malpractice and he or she gets disbarred.
It’s not strange. It’s a recognition that when someone whom you believe has expertise tells you something, you feel justified in relying on that person’s statement in order to make consequential decisions, and it’s not unlikely that doing so will be to that person’s detriment. The bar rule is that you cannot say things to someone that will make them behave this way without the full degree of diligence provided by an attorney-client relationship.
Seems to me that if you’d read what actual lawyers who posted in this thread have said, you’d understand why these two sentences frustrate them so much.
Except that she is the OP every time, and she keeps talking about how she can do the job herself and how it’s not a magical process, and how you don’t need training, etc.
This is all fine by me. I don’t honestly care if she goes pro se or if she wins or loses. She’s more than welcome to try the case herself, and if she is in real financial need, there are plenty of legal aid services that will likely provide free services – but the lawyers there are likely just as unwilling to put themselves on the hook without having control over the case as protection from malpractice.
It’s when she asks lawyers for help with her case, denies that she is asking for help, and insults the lawyers, saying they don’t know what they are talking about, all in the same post. It’s when she refuses to acknowledge that every single lawyer who has responded has said that she is asking for advice and not mere “information”.
In short, it’s her rank hypocrisy and failure to acknowledge that she isn’t an expert that is annoying. It’s her demand for free services, and her scorn for those who don’t wish to provide them, or for those who don’t give her the answers she wants to hear.
She might be (is) a dumbass to go pro se, but that’s her call. But I do feel the need to point out that she did indeed hire a lawyer to help her on her appeal (for 2 grand), and that the OP itself says she wants the info so she can know which lawyer to hire. How this jives with her poverty, I don’t know, but Stoid’s inability to clearly explain the situation might help you understand why most posters think she might be making the decision to go pre se for the wrong reasons.
But professionals/experts in other fields do this all the time, both in these forums, elsewhere, and in numerous RL situations.
In fact, lawyers do it too, and although they tend to add disclaimers to their posts, they could have done it here as well. IIRC one lawyer actually did post some information in the other thread that Stoid found useful.
But it could be that there are different standards for lawyers, and maybe some distinction in the case of those other posts. I’m not looking to debate legal ethical standards here.
But if that’s the case, just say so. The fact that these threads have focused so heavily on denunciations of Stoid for daring to think that she could properly function as a lawyer makes me think the real issue is elsewhere. YMMV.
Then you, like she, are willfully deluding yourself by hearing only what you want to hear, because no fewer than one dozen lawyers by my count have stopped by to say that the distinction between advice and information is NOT very clear, it is in fact very UNCLEAR, the very definition of a gray area, which is why these lawyers do not want to help her.
But no one can make either of you grasp that if you simply cannot or will not. If we lawyers are “asshats” at this point, it’s for not having had the sense to give up the attempt far before we did. But that is, in fact, a common lawyerly fault: We are taught to be persuaders and we don’t like to admit that some people are not persuadable. Some people will either not see the justice of a point or not acknowledge it, or both – not even if you argue and explain it until the end of time.
I think he or she is obviously grieviously late to the party, and so would like us to re-start the party just on his/her behalf. Upon consideration, the attempt is rather transparent, so I think I’ll decline to assist any further with that.
It’s this kind of thing that annoys me. We have said that’s the case. We have said it repeatedly.
I don’t see anyone’s response as being some personal attack on Stoid for going pro se. You are simply projecting your thoughts onto the discussion instead of having an understanding of the context of the discussion(s) and the points made. I addressed this point just a few posts ago, myself. Did you miss it?
P.S.: Saying YMMV as some sort of declaration that we’ll just have to agree to disagree, because it’s all a matter of opinion is silly and intellectually dishonest.
Not professionals – like doctors and lawyers – who are held liable for the advice they give. Doctors and lawyers know that (1) the advice they give might have quite critical circumstances and (2) advice can change according to many, many variables, and (3) people are likely to act upon casual advice. That’s also a reason why this board prohibits people from asking personal, real life medical and legal questions.
It’s very unlikely that a computer programmer giving advice on a board is going to say something that will completely fuck up a person. And it’s very unlikely that someone’s going to act on architectural advice offered on a message board to build a major highway bridge over the Mississippi River.
I meant “just say so” in the conventional meaning of “as opposed to additionally carrying on forever in an emotional manner about other matters”. I wasn’t implying that it hadn’t been said at all.
Why would that be? I am judging emotion and intention by the focus of posts, and you guys should at least consider the possibility that you are biased by your conceit. Seems like a highly subjective matter to me.
The same applies to any number of fields, from auto mechanics to home repair.
Anyway as noted, lawyers do this all the time, including on these boards. See the linked post above for information pertaining to this very matter, and while Billdo may well have realized the error of his ways and be quaking constantly lest he be reported to the Bar, I imagine that he’ll be OK. Here are a couple of threads containing lawyers providing information relating to actual legal questions. You’ll notice that some of the lawyers posting are also those who’ve posted here claiming that advice and information can’t be distinguished.
And I’ve seen others. The only thing that stands out about this case, and why the lawyers seem unable to give their usual “I’m not your lawyer, this is not legal advice but here are some legal facts that may or may not be relevant to your case …” information is that the OP made clear that she intends to pursue a relatively complex legal matter on her own. Apparently this hit a sensitive spot for many lawyers.
You must have missed the part where several people pointed out that the risk of being sued was especially high in this case since Stoid appears to blaming everything and everyone for losing her case except herself.