I got wagged by a moderator for hi-jacking another thread. He politely explained what I did wrong and I am moving my rant out here.
I think the USA has too many laws and far too many lawyers. I think we could rewrite the law books into American English and minimize the interaction of lawyers with writing new laws. Currently it appears to me that Lawyers make up the majority of legislators. This means they write and pass the laws, sit in judgment on the laws, prosecute and defend with the laws. This one profession has hamstrung America without any constraints on them.
I plead with all law students:
Please, go into an honest profession instead. It is not too late. If you can pass the bar, you could probably have been a Teacher, Engineer, Nurse, Doctor, Truck Driver, Welder, Police officer, Fireman, Mechanic or any other respectable trade/profession. Why waste all that talent on the least needed field.
I’m sorry, but lawyers are the ruination of mankind. I have to hope that they all fail the bar. I clicked are this thread expecting jokes. Can’t believe it is serious.
I apologize, but I equate Lawyers to pit bulls. I know some are good, but so many are so bad, I wish we could do away with the profession.
If you wish to defend Lawyers, your best defense would be to pass laws to stop the sleazy advertising and disbar more of the sleazy ambulance chasers.
Collection of Quotes:
“America is a paradise of lawyers.”
~ David Brewer (1837-1910)
American jurist, b. Smyrna, Asia Minor, assoc. justice, US Supreme Court
More quotes about: America, Lawyers, Paradise
“Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.”
~ Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
British writer, poet, essayist & critic
More quotes about: Children, Lawyers
“LIAR, n. A lawyer with a roving commission.”
~ Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
American satirist
from The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
More quotes about: Lawyers
“If it weren’t for lawyers, we wouldn’t need them.”
~ unknown
More quotes about: Lawyers, Needs
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
~ William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
English poet, the greatest poet ever
from King Henry VI, Part II, Act IV, scene ii.
More quotes about: Lawyers
“Deceive not thy physician, confesasor, nor lawyer.”
~ George Herbert (1593-1633)
English clergyman, writer & metaphysical poet
from “Jacula Prudentum,” 1651.
More quotes about: Deception, Lawyers
“LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.”
~ Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
American satirist
from The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
More quotes about: Laws, Lawyers
“God works wonders now and then; Behold a lawyer, an honest man.”
~ Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
American entrepreneur, statesman, scientist & philosopher
More quotes about: God, Honesty, Lawyers
“A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.”
~ Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
American entrepreneur, statesman, scientist & philosopher
“Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.”
~ Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
They don’t do it all at the same time. And your reasoning is bass-ackward. I would wager that politicians study the law because they have the goal of politics in mind and want to know how the law works.
I would reply to this thread on behalf of a friend at Harvard Law and another friend of mine who works in environmental law in Los Angeles, but there’s no point. The shallowness of the reasoning in the OP makes me hope that the lawyers on this board will just click on instead of defending their profession.
I have no particular love of lawyers myself… but I do think it’s an honest profession, (or can be,) and in this modern age, a necessary one. I’ll take issue particularly with this point.
‘American’ english (or any colloquial dialect of any language,) is rife with inconsistencies and inaccuracies. Just hang out anywhere that people are using it, GD should work just fine for this purpose… and it shouldn’t be too hard to see that. Laws are written in ‘legalese’ because a sort of technical jargon has arisen to treat the peculiarities of the subject with about as much precision, consistency, and accuracy as is humanly possible.
And what is the subject?? Law is, essentially, the endeavour to establish a set of social regulations that keep a modern nation running smoothly. Consider the number of people in an average US state, the variety of activities and interactions they undertake on a daily basis, the number of possible ways those actions can interfere with each other, and the complexity of the rule of law begins to show its true size. You don’t like it?? Well, maybe you’d like anarchy better. (You’d better be very strong, alert, and otherwise capable of taking care of yourself if you’re at all interested in this option, and you’d better find someplace that nobody else has established the rule of law. But that’s a sidetrack.)
As a sidenote, I’ve heard that way back around the time of the thirteen colonies, there were actually more lawyers per capita and more legal suits pressed per capita per year than in any decade of the 20th century. Can anyone confirm this??
Wanna reduce the number of lawyers? Reduce the number of laws. Start with the tax code, and work your way from there. It’s not the lawyers’ fault that we have so many laws no one can even keep track of them.
No. But it is capitalism. And it sounds like you have a beef with it. But money buying injustice is hardly unique in the courtroom.
I didn’t know that that thing wasn’t a step. I’m glad the sticker told me.
Because we live in a complicated, modern society. It has drawbacks and perks. You can’t buy a house on your own anymore. You also can’t build a PlayStation. Deal.
Short answer: Because two wrongs don’t make a right. If the homeowner did something bad, another bad deed does not make the first one okay.
Many don’t. It varies state to state.
Yes. Complicated, modern life. Simplify everyone’s life, and the law will simplify with it.
Probably not. Who’s going to be a public defender? Someone who didn’t go to law school? There’s plenty of good to be done with a law degree.
I’m totally with you on the tax code–I’m all for a uniform set of brackets with no exemptions (even the sacred mortgage interest exemption…) for both people and corporations, but where to next?
Ever hear of a little thing called the First Amendment? The Bar actually has tried very hard to get those ads off TV, but they can’t.
Abso-fucking-lutely. Because every situation is different. Every case has its own mitigating factors. And if the laws aren’t complicated enough to encompass that, then every case the chance of the law doing “justice” is smaller and smaller. Human behavior is infinitely complex. Ergo, the codes of conduct we establish, if we want them to do a good job of regulating behavior, have to also be infinitely complex. Well that’s impossible, but we try to draw a happy medium.
In short, if you think the laws would be that easy to rewrite in conversational english, then quit pissing about it and get writing.
We live under the rule of law precisely to avoid needing hitmen. When someone breaches a contract, we can sue. We don’t have to have them whacked.
There are many things one can complain about with regards to the present American legal system. But to reduce it all to “F–k the lawyers” doesn’t address any of the legitimate complaints. If you have specific reforms, bring 'em on, as John Mace has done.
The reason we have so many lawyers is because of human nature. We get in conflicts, and we seek redress for injuries. The two ways we have developed to get redress are through the law or through violence. Clearly seeking legal redress is more conducive to civilization than violence.
Ultimately, the source of our problems is human nature itself. Reform that, and all our other social problems will vanish. But as long as human nature remains as it is, we just have to find ways to mitigate its harmful aspects. The rule of law, annoying as it is, is one such way.