Arrogant Attorney Asshats

The BBQ Pit
41

Ah yes, all good fun (it’s even easier if you use the constraint logic solving features, which I suspect didn’t exist in the mid-80s). I actually think the bank problem’s a bit trickier in Prolog, to be honest; Einstein’s Riddle is pretty easy, because it’s really just the matching problem, which is a basic feature of Prolog, plus a couple of other constraints (which, as you note, you pretty much just have to write down). The bank problem involves some recursion and case checking, which always breaks some of our students’ brains.

(This sounds a bit one-uppish, actually; not meant to be, I just always find it interesting which problems the students have trouble with…)

42

My god. People lie? Why didn’t anyone ever TELL ME?

43

As your lawyer I advise you to take a big steaming mug of STFU.

44

Shoot the wolf.

45

Stoid, I ask you, again, to give us an example of a question you asked an attorney (or you want to ask), the answer to which includes information only, without advice.

46

It seems that in recent weeks my wife and I (both lawyers) have had a number of conversations abut how difficult it can be to discuss legal matters with non-attorneys. Simply put, non-lawyers quite often seem to have difficulty distinguishing between what is legally significant and what is not. Lawyers assess situatons differently than most non-lawyers.

Just the other day a court reporter friend was telling us about a case she was working on. My wife and I had a heck of a time getting this intelligent person to tell us who was suing who. As a lawyer, there is not much more basic, but it apparently didn’t fit into the way this individual perceived the case.

Another wrinkle on this is the way lawyers are often accused of being heartless bastards. Simply put, the personalities of the individuals involved don’t matter. From a legal perspective, disputes are simply between party A and party B. Whether A is a saint and B an SOB has no bearing on what duty they owed each other in a particular dispute. One of the most important functions of an attorney is to objectively assess the merits of a claim.

Just saying, a couple of reasons many lawyers are extremely hesitant to offer informal opinions about pending matters are:

  1. forming an intelligent opinion depends on reviewing all of the relevant evidence - and a non-attorney is generally not capable of telling what is and is not relevant evidence;
  2. most lawyers have had plenty of experiences where people misinterpreted or misunderstood their advice;
  3. there are ethical considerations a non-lawyer may not appreciate regarding the offering of legal advice.
47

Crystal. The answer is “wood”, written in Prolog, by a wolf.

(And I didn’t even have to pay a lawyer for that information. Heh heh heh…)

48

No Stoid, you’ll be happy to know that I do not, in fact, think that honesty blows and lying rocks. First of all, you didn’t say anything about honesty in its pure form; you were talking about bullshit. Secondly, you weren’t making a value judgement; you were stating a fact which I happened to disagree with based on experience.

You talk about 100% honesty and how wonderful it is like the world ran on honesty. As if all the dictators and presidents of the world could solve everything today just by being honest. Maybe they could, Stoid, but it’s not going to happen today.

As far as what I’ve learned? I’ve learned that quite a bit of harm is done out of a sincere desire to do the right thing, but without knowing all the facts or how to implement them. Sort of like McCandless with the Stampede Trail and you with the law. They thought they were doing the right thing, but they weren’t. I might add to that list a few missionaries I read about in CNN who went to Afghanistan to try to win converts with the sincere but shockingly deluded belief that they were trying to help. They were arrested and lucky to get out of the country in one piece. The converts were arrested too, and threatened with death. Once the missionaries made it back, we stopped hearing about the converts, so I’ve got a pretty good idea about what happened to them, and my opinion of missionaries–never very high to begin with–pretty much wound up in the crapper. Bullshit can mess things up when taken too far, but it’s not the only thing causing problems in the world.

I’ve also learned that bullshit greases the world, and you ignore it at your pleasure. Someone’s pregnant wife is never fat, for instance; she’s glowing. There are a bunch of other examples I’d list if I didn’t have a paper due tomorrow, but you get the idea. People who talk about 100% honesty really don’t have a clue as to how awesomely terrible the consequences are. Also, you’d better be ready to face a ton of bullshit in life yourself, Stoid, especially if you’re preparing for a court of law. I’m not saying that bullshit rocks. I’m saying that it exists, so you might as well just learn to deal with it.

Hope that helps.

49

It’s all because of HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY the judge. You see, my case, should you choose to accept it, is ironclad. There are laws specifically written for my situation that mention me by name and say I should win. However, the evil beast attorney from hell has filled the court with lies and deceit, though I am at a loss to be able to prove this.

Instead I have poured my time and effort into becoming a lawyer myself, without that pesky law school thing, so that I can accurately decide which lawyer is the best, because obviously hiring the best lawyer (which is me) is a guaranteed win. But sadly, all the lawyers I talk to won’t tell me the things that I either already know, or that I don’t know and understand, because if they told me things that I didn’t yet understand, I would be able to accurately judge their qualifications, based on the information that I didn’t understand that they gave me. For free. And I totally won’t sue for malpractice, because I am most clearly the most rational, humble, and clearly-seeing-now-that-the-rain-of-lies-is-gone person. Ever. Except Nietzche. I’m being so sincere right now.

Also, this area of the law is so arcane and difficult that only the chosen barrister, He who Walks upon Clouds and Dispenses legal Adviceformation while Clad in a Nimbus of silvery Light, the prophecized one, foretold in legend and tale, can handle this case better than I can. Yet until I can find The One True Lawyer, and convince him to take my case for great justice, I can only work on this new motion. It is a motion to Win My case and be Declared Right Through Bad Latin Sua Flagrante Delicto Klaatu Habeous Corpus Power of Attorney Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law.

I am filled to the brim with wrath that the System will not open up and accept my Word of glorious Truth, and that the damn’d wretches who pull the oars (I also have a gift for metaphor, natch) of the viking paddlewheeler we call “Justice” have yet to provide me with the inforvice that I so urgently need, but not really because I am actually a better lawyer than they are, but I can’t win because the other side is, like, totally cheating man.

50

OK, I think what we have here is a failure in definitions. You know how people rail against the Theory of Evolution because, well, after all, it’s just a THEORY? Not realizing that the scientific definition of theory is different than the layman’s version.

Well legal “advice” isn’t the same as advice you’d write to Dear Abby about. And while I’m curious about what “information” you seem to be seeking from these lawyers, I don’t actually need to hear it. Because I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that it’s not information you’re looking for, it’s advice. How do I know this?

Your quote.

You don’t know what you’re going to do yet in your case. 99.99999% of all legal analysis starts with “it depends.” What does it depend on? The case it’s being applied to! This is information that will not be hovering out in the vacuum of space but applied to your case and when a lawyer does that, it’s advice. And when a lawyer gives you advice outside the constructs of a lawyer-client relationship, it’s a really fucking big deal and can potentially lead to really serious consequences not the least of which is disbarment.

Will it? Will asking for legal information lead to that? I dunno. It depends! See how that works?

51

Request for information (bullshitted around):

Q. In your 20 years of practice, have you ever personally observed or heard about a court making an order that the plaintiff put a pancake on the head of a bunny?

A. I can’t answer that without knowing more about your case.

Q. This isn’t about my case. I’m asking about your experience of other cases. Have you ever seen it? Heard about it?

A. I think you are asking for advice and I can’t give advice.

Q. No, I’m not. I’m trying to find out how the law has worked in the past so I can know if it is possible for it to work that way in the future. I’m trying to do something that isn’t merely common in the law, it’s what the law is built on: precedent. Trying to find out if there is a precedent for something.

A. You are looking for advice about whether you should do X in relation to the bunny with the pancake on its head, and I can’t give you that advice.

Q. No, I’m not asking for that advice. I am asking about your knowledge and experience with a court telling a plaintiff to put a pancake on the head of a bunny. Not in depth, just… have you seen it? Heard of it? Because I’ve been researching the shit out of it, and while I can’t seem to find anything about bunnies and pancakes, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And because you happen to have a great deal of experience with bunny courts, I thought you could tell me whether you’ve ever personally encountered a bunny with a pancake on its head, placed there by the plaintiff, under orders from the court? Or, on the other hand, have you read or heard of any case law (or statute) that specifically says that courts can or cannot order plaintiffs to place pancakes on the heads of bunnies? Because if you do know of it, I’d like to be directed to it so I can read about it, learn what happened, and have a better understanding of the whole pancake/bunny situation and what it can lead to.

A. I don’t know what it can lead to in your case, I need to know more about your case in order to tell you what it can lead to.

Q. I’m not asking you to tell me that, I’ll find out once I know where to start. I’m asking if you’ve ever seen it or if you know of cases or laws relating to it. If the answer is no, it’s no. If it’s yes, I just want to know if it was a case, a statute, or your own experience. if it was your own experience, then I’d love it if you’d tell me what the outcome was or anything else you think would be helpful to my understanding, but if you don’t want to go that far, I understand. At least I now know that someone, somewhere, has seen it with their own eyes so I can keep looking for more info.

A. I cant’ give advice.

Sigh…

Request for information (Straightfowardly answered):

Q. In your 20 years of practice, have you ever personally observed or heard about a court making an order that the plaintiff put a pancake on the head of a bunny?

A.Hmmm. I’ve never had it happen in one of my own cases, but I seem to recall reading about it a long time ago in relation to a case.

Q. Great! Do you remember anything about that might help me do some research on it?

A. Not much. Except that it might have been the Rabbit courts instead of the Bunny courts. Try looking there. And maybe in the case I’m thinking of it was a muffin or a scone.

Q. Thanks! You’ve given me a new lead for my research, I appreciate it!

Request for advice:

Q. I’m in a case where the court told the plaintiff to put a pancake on the head of a bunny. This is going to cause me problems. What should I do?
I just had a funny thought… I want a good lawyer to be kinda like Deep Throat in “All the President’s Men” (and real life): don’t tell me who has the money or where it went or why it matters…just tell me that what I need to do is follow the money. Then I’ll follow it and see why it matters and write my story.

I understand things better that way anyway.

52

The thing about ignorance is that it’s difficult to know what you don’t know. It’s hard to learn about the depths of your ignorance without learning the material, and with something like the law, learning the material takes law school.

It’s my guess that if you went to law school then came back and read this thread, you’d see where you were going wrong, but without doing that, there’s no way for anyone else to make you see where your assumptions are going wrong.

This isn’t about smart versus not smart, it’s about knowledge versus ignorance. There’s no shame in ignorance until it gets to the point where it isn’t acknowledged.

53

I’m in marketing. Specifically, I’m the director of marketing for a national franchising organization.

Often, we have dealers joining our organization. When I talk to them, they will usually ask me “What’s the best method to use to advertise our business?”

There are dozens of ways to answer this question, because it depends on a multitude of factors. I try to explain this, and usually I’m successful. Sometimes, though, a really hardheaded dealer will persist in asking the question. They’re convinced there’s a 100-percent successful, sure-fire way to advertise their business to generate sales, and for some reason I’m not sharing it with them. I can’t make them understand otherwise

Or, I’ll devise a media strategy for a new dealer, and explain how the different facets work together to form a cohesive whole. Invariably, the dealer will choose one part of the mix (the least expensive part), use that for approximately half the recommended time, and then complain to me that my ideas were crap and didn’t work.

And this is just in marketing. I shudder to think what attorneys go through.

54

Oh, for Pete’s sake. You’re hopeless.

I can’t believe any lawyer is still actually taking your calls.

55

Again, speaking as your friend:

Stoid. Sigh . . . you just don’t listen, do you? Some people have hearing problems. You have a listening problem.

What you just put up for us to view about the bunny and the pancake? The lawyer is right, and you are wrong. That’s advice. You’re asking for advice. Not in the sense that you’re asking about advice on whether you should break up with someone or not. This is a different type of advice, as has been pointed out to you by real lawyers about half a dozen times in this thread, and Dog knows how many times in your other thread!!!

Get it through your head!! The lawyer knows more than you! It’s his job to know more than you! That’s why he’s a lawyer, and you’re the client! He’s not trying to cheat you out of money. He’s trying to guard himself against disbarment. If he disagrees with you about the legal meaning of a word, he’s most likely right, and you’re more than likely totally wrong.

Will you please start listening!! No one’s trying to bullshit you here. I’ll say it again. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Not because you’re stupid. You’re not stupid. It’s because you have no training, NO TRAINING NO TRAINING IN THIS AREA!!! You don’t know what to look for. Again, several lawyers have already pointed this out to you.

Lose the teflon on your brain, and let some of this sink in, Stoid! Listen to people when they tell you things, especially if they’re people who specialize in those things. OK?

56

Except that I haven’t gone wrong. I lost spectacularly while putting my faith in my lawyer, buying into what everyone tells me to buy into, that he knew best when he told me I was focusing on the wrong things, that it didn’t matter that the other side was saying and doing X, the thing that REALLY mattered was Y.

He should have had that conversation with the judge, who climbed right on board with X.

All the wins I’ve had and all the progress I’ve ever made in this case (And I have had some small victories…) have happened as a result of my own work representing myself.

Which would go easier and faster if I could get lawyers to stop arguing with me about the meaning of advice and either give me information or tell me they don’t want to, one or the other, doesn’t matter which. If I can be spared the argument I laid out above, I’ll get to the next lawyer that much faster.

57

Just for the record, court orders requiring a plaintiff to put a pancake on a bunny are called orders en lepum placenta lebis.

58

Well, that’s true, if your ultimate goal always was to look like an obstinate, ignorant, braying jackass.

59

Sure. The important part is the varnish. For this, I recommend at least three coats of concrete.

60

You are asking him how the law is going to work in your case. You want him to predict for you how your case is going to work. This is advice.