Like others I’m not particularly offended by a church based university having a law school. After all Notre Dame has a law school. What does bother me is the idea that a university which has been founded for as much political purposes as for the education of the faithful wants to set up a law school with the express objective of finding the loopholes is a specific body of law and seeing to it that the law changes. I’m not aware of any present law school that has that as its mission – not even the vaunted Harvard Law. It’s not unlawful but it is offensive and to some extent subversive of the whole institution. It is as if the Bonanno Family set up its own police academy.
As to the Liberal quote, our friend may have stumbled on something. Instinct tells me that the social conservatives / reactionaries are nothing is not patient. In time and especially with the popular election of state trial and appellate court judges the neo-Jesuits the Rev. Mr. Falwell proposes to send into the profession will be judges, and judges with an agenda, and as judges pretty much a law unto them selves. It is also a recognition that in as increasingly secular nation with an increasing attitude of “live and let live” the Rev. Mr. Falwell and his like know that the ordinary and accepted processes of law and government are not going to accomplish their objectives. That is not of its self evil or unlawful but it does mean that if the present trends are not going to be reversed or retarded the secular portion of the electorate is going to have to pay attention and exercise its franchise.
I suppose it’s possible for anything to slip through the cracks.
Are you saying that we don’t currently have lawyers who are biased against certain people? Because I really doubt that’s the case. Any way I imagine they’d avoid tanking a case or phoning a performance in for fear of a malpractice suit if nothing else. It’s entirely possible that these folks might actually want to adhere to the legal ethics of their profession.
If I’m a client trying to fight unjust laws I want a lawyer who is on my side. I expect lawyers to follow the law and the ethics of their profession but I do not believe they must be neutral with respect to the law as a whole. I don’t even expect judges to be neutral but I do expect them to rule according to the law.
What you’re basically saying here is that the federal district court judges are incompetents who are unwilling or unable to read the complaint, see that it fails to state a valid claim, and dismiss the lawsuit. Which is bollocks. Even in my half-sleepy Saturday morning brain-off mode, I can see such an argument would be frivolous, since state marriage laws don’t have a single goddamned thing to do with what doctrines churches may preach or what types of unions they consider doctrinally valid.
Frankly, if you’re worried about a lawyer somehow disguising a case to slip it past the judiciary, I’d be far more worried about a fundamentalist from Yale Law. They’d be far brighter, and far more up to the challenge of pulling off such a slight of hand.
So what? Nobody ever changed anything by losing a case. And if the PD does an intentionally poor job, his client has an ineffective assistance of counsel appeal available.
PDs, BTW, are only available for criminal defendants; they are not appointed for civil cases. Since Christian fundies are mostly interested in civil matters – primarily the intersection of church and state in public life and abortion rights – I’m not sure why this would be an area of concern.
Look, when I was in law school, we had our fair share of social activists of all stripes who were hidebound and determined to use the courts to shape society in ways they thought proper (I, on the other hand, was just there to learn how to make a buck). I’m talking everything from radical near-communist National Lawyer’s Guilders to right-wing Federalist Society types to, yes, religious fundamentalists. All of those people, to my knowledge, graduated and passed the bar; all of them, to my knowledge, remained committed to their ideological goals. Why do you not fear the University of Texas Law School launching such people on the world, but you do fear Falwell doing so?
Sure, UT benefits its students by exposing them to a lot of different people, while Falwell’s school doesn’t. But that just means that UT cranks out better-equipped lawyers, because they’ve heard and can respond to their opponent’s arguments. If anything, you should be more afraid of the UT grads.
I think a lot of people are forgetting that law students aren’t babes in the woods. This isn’t like brainwashing high school students. Law students, by definition, have graduated from college. They are adults in every sense of the word. Falwell’s school isn’t going to make them into fundamentalists; they’re already there if they see Falwell’s school as a good place to spend their tuition dollars. These people are going to be entering law school anyway, and they’ll be part of the legal profession in any event.
Frankly, I applaud the Falwell school because it gives me an easy way to know that a particular person’s arguments probably aren’t worth deep consideration. I’d have to listen to someone from Yale for awhile before I knew he was a religous nutter. Someone with a Falwell sheepskin is broadcasting that information up-front.
Hell, I fear all of them. They speak a language I do not understand. They know their way around a system that controls every aspect of my life and yet is so complicated that years of advanced study are required even to begin navigating the depths of its structure. Even now, I’m really not debating so much as just asking questions and making naive observations. But if this is to be a debate about the law in se, then only lawyers are qualified to debate. I don’t think it is unreasonable to broaden the discussion to more general ethical issues since the vast majority of Dopers are not lawyers. I’m not saying that judges are massively incomptetent, but as these guys begin to worm their way into judgeships, collusion, corruption, and conspiracy become possible. It doesn’t take a doctorate in jurisprudence to know that if you find yourself facing a Falwell judge and a Falwell attorney, you have an uphill battle ahead.
Say, can you provide a precise cite for that–Falwell’s exact words, for example? The vast majority of Christian teachers that I know don’t make such a claim. Rather, they teach that the laws of the land are valid unless they are in direct contradiction to God’s Word. (This is nothing new. Even atheists frequently denounce anti-homosexuality laws as invalid, arguing that they directly contradict laws of justice and morality.)
Mind you, I’m not saying that Falwell made no such statement at all. However, I’d like to see direct evidence of his statement before denouncing it.
You really don’t understand the role of lawyers. There are gobs and gobs of laws with which I, as a lawyer, do not agree. But when I answered question on the Bar exam, the issue was whether I thought the particular law in question was “proper,” but whether I gave the correct answer applying the law as it is.
It is the same in practice. I believe that marijuana should be legalized, and that the laws criminalizing them are wrong. But if I were defending a client on a possession charge, I would not stand up and scream “the whole system’s out of order!” Instead, I would argue that the police used improper methods, the chain of evidence was broken, the evidence doesn’t support the contention that my client owned the baggie of pot, etc.
OTOH, if I thought pot smokers should be hanged, I would still make the same arguments in favor of my client. That is not lying; that’s doing my job.
If Liberty University law school grads don’t apply the actual law, then their clients will lose and the lawyers won’t get more work, that is if they avoid disbarment.
It’s no different than the University of Chicago trying to spread its “law and economics” legal theories. Lawyers are certainly allowed to try to change the law through their legal arguments - that’s exactly what Thurgood Marshall did in Brown v. Board of Education The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund certainly “infiltrated the culture.” Other groups are allowed to try to do the same. Those of us who disagree with Falwell’s views have the obligation of providing better arguments as to why Falwell’s view should not be allowed to “infiltrate the culture.” I’m confident we can do so.
I can’t tell from the rather raw hostility exactly what you’re saying. Are you contesting the assertion that a significant number of lawmakers are lawyers? Or that lawyers have an advanced education? Or that there are broader ethical issues to discuss? Or that lawyers and judges who share an agenda might be corruptible?
Depending on who you are: Philosophically and ethically, perhaps. Technically, probably not. If they teach the law, and the graduates can pass the Bar, that’s all that really matters in the end, from a legal standpoint.
I think fundamentalist Christianity is a virulent societal disease, but curing that disease should not involve denying fundamentalist Christians their legal rights and civil liberties, such as establishing and attending schools that meet the basic requirements for accredidation. Parochial educational institutions of all kinds exist, so there’s no reason to dismiss the idea of a fundie law school merely because of its core philosophy. There are literally hundreds of shools of higher learning in the USA with religious affiliations, and I can think of no justification whatsoever for thinking a law school couldn’t or shouldn’t enter their ranks.
We may deplore the existence of such institutions, but these sorts of things come with the priviledge of living in a free country. Try not to give secularists a bad name by suggesting we can’t compete with religionists in the arena of ideas on morally and ethically sound principles. If we cannot, secularism will prove itself devoid of legitmacy.
No, I’m contesting the assertion that the law “is so complicated that years of advanced study are required even to begin navigating the depths of its structure.” I’m contesting the assertion that “if this is to be a debate about the law in se, then only lawyers are qualified to debate.”
In generaly, I’m contesting a regular facet of your debating style: the passive-aggressive way in which you approach any discussion that involves the law, essentially ducking the issues raised with a “oh, nossah, I’m not a lawyah, I don’t know nuthin’ about them legal thangs,” usually accompanied with hand-waving language about how all lawyers are part of a corrupt, labyrinthe system designed to confuse and entangle you.
All of which is bullshit. Yes, there are areas of the law that are complex and legal training helps one to understand that complexity. But those areas are almost never discussed on GD or on the boards generally – legal topics raised here are entirely accessible to the layman. Indeed, the only item in this thread that requires specialized knowledge is understanding the meaning behind Sua Sponte’s username.
So seriously: lay off the martyr routine.
As for your point about “collusion, corruption, and conspiracy” becoming possible as these guys “begin to worm their way into judgeships” – well, perhaps you’d care to explain how this is any different from the status quo? A fundamentalist lawyer is a fundamentalist lawyer, whether he went to Yale or Liberty. Indeed, the fundamentalist from Yale is harder to deny entry onto the bench because his choice of legal academy does not declare his bias to the world.
I may not know the law, but I do know logic, and I know that just because you keep repeating something does not make it true. If everyone who thinks the law is complicated is a martyr, then we’re gonna need a lot of crosses. But speaking of patterns, perhaps instead of hijacking the discussion into a lamentation about me personally, you can engage in an honest debate. I don’t think it is unreasonable to interpret the OP’s question in broad ethical terms. I think the question, “Is there anything wrong with a fundamentalist religion-centered law school,” presents itself as fair game for anyone with a concern about ethics. As a lifelong student of philosophy, I am interested in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. Even Spavined Gelding has given me the credit of a blind pig. Maybe I am not as inept as you imagine.
Spare me. Pick almost any law-related thread in GD and you’ll find more non-lawyer participants than than lawyer participants, most of whom hold their own quite well.
Some aspects of the law are complicated, but the topics covered on this board are generally not among them.
And merely thinking the law is complex doesn’t make you a martyr. Incessantly whining about that perception in lieu of actively participating in the debate is what makes you a martyr.
And as a libertarian, your position on such a school should be remarkably clear-cut: if this school succeeds in attracting applicants, then it should be allowed to do so. Anything else would be tantamount to coercion. Pesky questions about right and wrong get hammered out by the market.
At any rate, your proposition that such a school presents a risk of “collusion, corruption, and conspiracy” is bollocks, for the reasons I raised in my last post, and which you curiously failed to address in your response.
I think the most complicated thing about grasping law comes about because its terms of art haven’t seeped into popular discourse to the level that other professions’ terms of art have. Any profession will have particular tendencies of language usage, but lack of familiarity with the jargon makes it harder to get the hang of how to make the shift in language.
I worked in a law office for a year (starting as a receptionist and eventually as a legal secretary). One of the things that helped me grasp the jargon (aside from the rote modification of documents) was that on slow days I could pick up something that we were working on and ask the junior partner, “Okay, why is this language this way?” With occasional, “So what does this word mean in this context?” (I got a more nuanced understanding when I picked up a paralegal cert in night classes – pretty much purely for love of the subject, though the prospect of a pay raise was also a factor. But it was mostly application and a few of the more specific nuances; I already had the language.)
My experience is that basic understanding is pretty easy to pick up. It all behaves according to rules; the really fiddly applications of those rules take a while to pick up, but that’s going to be the case with any set of rules.
Thanks for that insight, Lilairen. Is there anything that lay people can do with say, nothing more than Internet access, to familiarize themselves with jurisprudence to reach the level of someone like Dewey?
To the level of a trained lawyer? I doubt it. Lawyers will always remain the native speakers of that language.
To the level of a competent layman or maybe a legal assistant? Sure. Learn the language. Since so much of the language closely resembles English, it’s possible to build a solid groundwork through independent study; if a friendly lawyer is around to answer questions about terminology, it’ll get to be that much easier. Failing that, a law dictionary can patch the gaps; there are some online, though I can’t speak to their quality; http://dictionary.law.com/ is one I found through Google.
To develop facility with understanding the language, read it. You can probably find copies of the general laws for where you live online; the sections where you know something about the subject will be likely easier to go through. (The Massachusetts General Laws contain a section titled “Ferrets, possession and use”, which I find hilarious; the things I learn from looking at the animal control sections.) It’s entirely likely that these don’t have the footnotes that a print copy will, referencing case law that has modified the laws; a properly maintained hardcopy (in your local library) will have that information, either in new volumes, or in a little paper packet stuck in a pocket in the back of the book.
If you’ve had any legal documents prepared for you (especially a will or trust documents, which you presumably thought about what you wanted and had a lawyer implement for you), study the language there. If a court hands down a decision in an area where you’re interested, read the decision; read the dissents; read the concurring opinions – Supreme Court decisions are good for this, as they’re often online. (I don’t know how easily cited cases are to find online; I haven’t tracked back through stare decisis terribly often.)
I didn’t find it terribly difficult to learn the basics this way, just from context and immersion; admittedly, I had the advantage that I was the one who was modifying the documents, so I was a conduit for legalese even though I wasn’t generating it raw. There’s a particular mindset and approach to use of language that tends to make legal language seem more natural; I would expect that someone who approaches that mindset naturally would have an easier time with it than others. (The bit that I know I have is a tendency to make very fine distinctions upon which depend entire arguments; a fair amount of caselaw depends on which fine distinction is deemed the correct one for a given situation.)
Also, avoid trying to read the Internal Revenue Code unless you have a very good reason. (Crossing legalese with accounting creates an impenetrability singularity.)
(Dewey, do you have any suggestions you’d add to that? I haven’t been anything more than a somewhat educated layman in the field for some time.)
The question isn’t whether you can reach “my level” (snicker!).
The question is whether you can reach a level sufficient to discuss the legal issues that arise on this message board.
The answer to that is “yes,” and quite plainly so. Many posters do just that.
Most of the issues that arise here are constitutional in nature, which is an area of law that is probably easiest for a reasonably-intelligent layman to grasp. You also see the odd criminal law, torts, and contract issue raised in here, but almost never at a level of complexity beyond that tackled by your average first-year law student – meaning it’s nothing a fairly bright college graduate can’t handle.
Legal jargon can be difficult, but it never really gets used on these boards (Sua’s username notwithstanding). And in the rare instance where it is, you can do what I do when I run across a phrase that’s new to me: look it up. Law school does not teach you every legal term of art. Lawyers look at dictionaries, too.
So again, spare me the “ooooo, law is hard” line. It isn’t, at least as discussed here, and it’s a cop out when you say it is.
And this little exercise is a distraction from the OP. I can’t help but notice, Lib, that you’ve continued to ignore my point about your notion of the risk of “collusion, corruption, and conspiracy” stemming from this law school.
Thanks, Lilairen. Dewey, I wasn’t ignoring your question. Going back, finding it was rather like an Easter egg hunt. Once you’ve seen twenty sentences in a row that amount to little more than “you’re a scumball with a martyr complex”, the eyes become weary and it all begins to blur together. I think that the difference between Yale and Liberty will be like the difference between the Council of Churches and the Moral Majority. It is remarkable that you mock my inoffensive political philosophy as extremist while saying nothing about the extremism of pedantic moralists like Jerry Fallwell. At least all I want to do is give you freedom; he wants to put you in chains.
Wow, putting on the martyr mantle while complaining about others pointing out your martyr complex. Lib, you never cease to amaze.
Amazing that after the “Easter egg hunt” you still fail to answer my point.
That point again, in case you’ve forgotten: “Indeed, the fundamentalist from Yale is harder to deny entry onto the bench because his choice of legal academy does not declare his bias to the world.”
There are fundamentalist students at secular law schools, including possibly Yale. Those fundamentalists carrying Yale sheepskins are far more likely to reach positions of power because their degree does not announce a bias.
Thus, the notion that this school increases the chances of “collusion, corruption, and conspiracy” is bollocks.
I am not engaged in a discussion with Jerry Falwell. I am engaged in a discussion with you.
And I defy you to find any approving words, in this thread or in any other, that I have spoken on behalf of Mr. Falwell or his odious theology.
Lib, if you want an education in the language of the law, a great place to start is with a book by David Mellinkoff, The Language of the Law. It is a “scholarly treatment of legal language from its earliest days until the 1970s.” It’s also fascinating reading.
Nota bene: I am not a lawyer, but am through my work well-read in many aspects of the law. Certainly well-enough acquainted with the field to avoid litigation if at all possible.
But it was mostly application and a few of the more specific nuances; I already had the language.)
(Crossing legalese with accounting creates an impenetrability singularity.)