I’ve got a few simple questions that, depending upon the answers received, will sway my judgment one way or the other:
What value does a lawyer provide for my money, and what does paying a lawyer my money entitle me to expect?
From the moment a retainer is paid to the moment of either conviction or acquittal, what does a lawyer do that the average person is unable to do?
Pretty simple questions, guys.
Well, a competent lawyer should be aware of all the existing laws that apply to your situation in the jurisdiction where your legal activity is taking place along with all of the case law that has been decided on those issues that give direction to how your legal issues will be ajudicated. There is no reason why you cannot do this yourself. (And people are allowed to represent themselves at trial.) However, a prior knowledge of the actual law and its history means that a lawyer should not need the six to twelve months of research to find the appropriate laws and decisions that apply to your situation. In addition, the lawyer, having already spent several years in the study of the law will not need to take off work (or spend six to eight hours a day after work) during the several months it might take you to do the research.
There is no reason why you cannot build your own computer from scratch, become a master chef, or maintain an F-16 on your own–but it helps to have the training to know where to begin and the knowledge of where the resources to support your effort may lie.
Ok ** bricker**, now we are getting somewhere.
In essence you say…
According to the judicial system’s interpertation of our Constitutional rights “Equal rights before the law” simply means that we are entitled to only " reasonably effective assistance" in our trials before the courts.
Well why the heck didn’t you say so earlier?
Or has your legal training conditioned you such, that you can’t see the absurdity of vacuous terms like “reasonably effective assistance”.
In the real world it is obvious to we lay men and lay women that all laws that govern men must be written in exacting and definate terms, and not in prissy phrases like “reasonably effective assistance”
Would you please explain “reasonably effective assistance” in terms of legal representation?
Middlingly competent?
Like in…I don’t want to pay a lot of money so I need to find a lawyer who can give only reasonably effective assistance in my next court case.
The reality is that the courts are pragmatic and that is not their commission.
And as such the judicial’s antiquated method of interperting the words of the US Constitution allows even the most unworthy of interpertations to establish almost immediate “laws of precedence” that are unquestioned and slavishly followed by those who practice law before the courts.
You wouldn’t want them to be thrown out of the club would you?
In litigation, a competent lawyer will provide you with a better shot at getting a good result than you would alone. This can be done in many different ways.
For example, a lawyer can help you pick the best forum to bring your dispute. Is a plaintiff better off in state court in the Bronx or federal court in Westchester? Should a discrimination complaint be filed with the State human rights commission, the EEOC, or somewhere else? Trust me, these decisions can affect the end results tremendously.
In addition, a lawyer will (hopefully) have a decent idea of what you need to prove to win your case. For example, it happens all the time that a person seeking unemployment insurance calls me up and tells me that they quit their job for 2 reasons. They might say “I quit my job because I was under tremendous stress; they were making me work a lot of unpaid overtime.” I can tell such a person that the first part of their reason is a probable loser, the second part is a probable winner, and that at their hearing, they should emphasize the unpaid overtime.
A lawyer will also (hopefully) be familiar with the quirks of the forum and what buttons need to be pushed. For example, I happen to know that Judge so-and-so is tremendously biased in favor of folks who are well-dressed.
I could go on, but the point is that I have a lot of different ways of giving my clients an improved chance of winning their cases.
**
I would add that a lawyer’s services can continue after the decision. For example, in criminal law, a big part of the game is sentencing. I did a criminal matter a couple years ago; the client was guilty as sin. The senior attorney I worked with told the client to call all his friends and family and have them write letters to the Court saying what a nice guy he was and describing the nice things he had done for them. As a direct result of these letters, the Judge knocked down the guy’s sentence considerably.
An average person may not have thought to do this.
A quick look though a few GQ threads can show how a lawyer can have the ready answer to questions a layman might not necessarily know. As far as real world examples:
Say you have an outstanding warrant, and have had it for quite some time. You go to a lawyer to ask if the statute of limitations has run on it, a common question. The lawyer explains no, the statute of limitations only says that the state has a certain amount of time to file on you. An outstanding warrant means that you’ve been filed on. Still, he’ll see if there is something he can do. On reviewing your file, he notes that there’s a fundamental error in the complaint, something that someone who didn’t have some legal training or experience wouldn’t catch. The statute of limitations can’t prevent you from being prosecuted under this complaint, but it prevents the state from refiling on you if this one is no good, which it is. Your lawyer files a motion to quash the complaint and dismiss the charges. You walk.
A real life example: a kid came into my office a week or two ago with a minor in possession charge; his mother’s legal insurance gained as a state employee was footing the bill. He was charged with having a case of beer in his car even though an adult coworker he was driving home told the officer it belonged to him. I set it for a jury trial. The DA, seeing a misdemeanor that’s almost never contested set for trial, investigates the case. Realizing that it’s a dog, she dismisses the charges. The kid probably couldn’t have beat her in court even with a good case, but she knew I would. Being a good trial attorney is a surprisingly difficult skill, one which I have far from mastered. My dad is easily ten times the trial attorney I am. Knowing how to get in evidence, how to direct and cross examine effectively, how to choose your jury, how to get your point across to the jury, when to object, etc. etc. takes time to master. Sometimes it looks easy, but that’s just because a good lawyer makes it look easy.
Another real life example: A client of my dad’s is fighting not to have his parental rights terminated by the mother. We won in the trial court, but the mother’s attorney has appealed it all the way to the Texas Supreme Court alleging issues involving the statute of limitations, standing, and due course of law under the Texas Constitution. My dad doesn’t much care for appealte work, so he gives it to me. I recently completed a term as a law clerk to a federal judge, and pretty much my main task for 50-60 hours a week for a solid year was doing legal research and writing briefs and opinions, and an extremely high standard was demanded of my work. A research and write a reply brief that I’m pretty damn proud of, make and bind the dozen or so necessary copies, and mail 'em off before the due date. If the father had to try to figure out what to do by himself, i.e. how to research, what was relevant and what wasn’t, what cases supported him and what didn’t, how to write effectively, how to comply with the rules of court, and so on, it would have been virtually impossible to write even a crappy brief. It’s not that I’m any smarter than the father, I just have way, way more experience in this matter than he does.
*** THE PROBLEM WITH LAWYERS*
Despite what you’ve heard they are human** but they are asked to do a most un-human thing. The working dogma of their profession tells them that they must use their training to gain freedom for the guilty as well as those who are innocent. This mode of behavior is in direct opposition to the moral and social foundations of our culture and therfore causes us to think that those who commit this noxious deed are lower than snakes.
And in a sense they are.
** Lawyers are greedy** but only because they need the money to buy social standing in the communuity at large. As I said, lawyering is a thankless profession. But sometimes this way of thinking goes too far, for example lawyers bill their clients for their services by the hour but they have control over how many hours they bill. Three hundred dollars might be a mean, or average, lawyer charge per hour, or , to visualize it, about the same hourly wage as fifty gals and guys hussling hamburgers at McDonalds.
But even then lawyers feel slighted. As evidenced in this thread not only do lawyers want to work on their own clock, they want a piece of the action too. They want much more if their client benefits are large or their clients are threatened with dire results such as murder.
They sell justice indiscriminately to their clients both rich and poor, black and white, murderer and grandmother. They don’t care. They just like to help…by their secret knowledge of the outs and ends of courts, the foibles of judges, arcane laws, and by providing us entree to the cabal that serves us our justice today.
** They are arrogant** while thinking that they are some of the greatest people on this earth. Just listen to the lofty remarks cut from the off-handed comments of lawters on this thread who probably are some of the best people on this earth.
" I call bullshit on the whole damn story. Jail for a taillight violation? Please."
“So if you wish to argue that we should view the Constitution your way, have at it. But don’t tell me that’s what the Constitution says, because it doesn’t.”
… He is wrong. The system works. It works because the people who run it generally know what they are about. The supposed imperfections will not be fixed by injecting people who do not know what they are doing into the program. The opinion of contrarians may differ. They always do.
Would you tell me exactly what’s wrong with this quote? I’m curious why you think someone who is familiar with the workings of the courts pointing out that your interpretation of the Constitution is not in line with the courts’, and is therefore wrong for the purposes of the practice of law, is “arrogance.”
Not trying to hijack the thread or anything but…
[hijack]
This very thing forms the core of what is typically called “Legal Self Defense”. It works kind of this. If you aren’t careful about how you defend yourself from a violent encounter, then you could find yourself defending yourself from a lawsuit in court. The effects are, for most of us, instantly financially ruinous. Because it is a civil case, you probably will not get a free lawyer (obviously your local jurisdiction will dictate but my understanding is that a court appointed lawyer in a civil case is pretty rare) and attempting to defend yourself in a court of law is essentially legal suicide. Don’t believe me? Call some local attorney and ask them how much they’ll charge to defend you in a civil case involving you violently injuring somebody else.
There is a saying “It is better to be judged by 12, then carried by 6”, and this is certainly true, but it is very foolish to totally ignore the potential legal consequences of defending yourself.
The most important concept with regards to legal self defense is be wary of starting a new fight. Starting a new fight can make you very liable for the results of the fight. Some classic examples include: a) hitting somebody when they are down, b) chasing an attacker when the flee & c) ignoring a clear chance to escape (this last varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction)
And now back to your regularly scheduled debate…
[/hijack]
Of course, in milum’s ideal world, we would all just “know” who the guilty were and they would need no defense, so it does not matter what we do to the Scottsboro Boys or the other innocent people who have been convicted throughout our history when their counsel decided that they were guilty. (Estimates vary, but a huge number of death sentences are handed down in cases where the defense attorney did not bother to prepare a decent case–often because he felt that the accused was guilty.)
Gah. A few people – including you – asked what it is that lawyers can do that the clients couldn’t do for themselves.
A few examples are offered, and you call it arrogance. Admit it – attorneys can and do provide clients value for their money. If you want to call that arrogance, so be it.
As far as greed goes, I go to work every day for the exact reason you go to work - to MAKE MONEY.
Sorry lucewarm those who go to work every day only to make money are worse than lawyers… they are robots. I’m not a robot. I’m a being who believes that life has a vitality beyond rote reactions to gain simple comfort.
And I suspect too, that one day soon, afterwhile, you’ll be sorry.
Most lawyers emjoy the challenges of the work in addition to the paycheck. But you’ve still gotta pay the rent somehow. That’s why we charge for our efforts – just like every other working person on the planet.
It would be interesting to see whether you would react in such a non-materialistic manner if your boss told you he was cutting your salary in half.
And by the way, I don’t go to work ONLY to make money. But it’s an important reason.
I was enjoying our debate and am disapointed you never responded to my last post. Have you conceded?
Or is this thread just a pile-on of Milum…?
Apologies. I got sidetracked by the epic saga of Da Da.
But to start with first principles: do certain professions deal in areas where the consequences of misjudgment are so severe, and the extent of those consequences are so opaque to the layman, as to make licensing – an admittedly paternalistic governmental function – proper?
To take the least controversial measure: medicine. I think that is such an area. Indeed, I believe licensing grew out of an outcry from the problems of leaving the practice of medicine unregulated. The mechanisms for the public to adequately inform themselves simply didn’t arise.
If you agree medical practice should be regulated, then we need to discuss if and why law’s consequences are sufficiently similar or dissimilar so as to make licensing appropriate or inappropriate.
And there’s still the point of judicial effieciency. Contra to what you think, judges have a big stick with which to whack attorneys who file frivolous motions solely for the purpose of delay – that’s a violation of the attorney’s code of ethics. But there’s no way to whack a litigant who is just stumbling through the proceedings through no fault of his own. The court has an interest in ensuring that those appearing before it understand what is expected of them.
Does it have to be either/or? Could the gov’t offer it’s licensing system in parallel to an unlicinsed system? For example, I feel absolutely confident in my own ability to pick medical treatment for myself w/o the help of a gov’t licensing system. And yet, I’m unable to use my judgement, if I so desire.
And yet, a person is allowed to represent himself. I know I’ve brought this up before, but I don’t think it’s been addressed. If the issue is one of expediency of the process, why do we allow individuals to represent themselves? Theoretically, most people could choose to do so. If that happened, how would the current system respond? We could also argue that most people who represent themselves could be better served by someone more knowledgeable than they are (and yet not a licensed lawyer). Given that option, the person might choose that other person to represent them.
Well, yes it has to be either/or. It is an admittedly paternalistic system, premised on the belief that laymen lack the background to properly assess risk in this area and thus to choose qualified practitioners. Seriously – outside of the very best medical schools – the Johns Hopkins and Harvards of the world – could you assess the quality of a person’s medical degree from its name alone? Given the number of people who persist in believing in peudoscientivid remedies – see the GD thread on magnetic therapay currently under discussion – do you really think people would pay attention to a license that only amounted to a recommendation?
Again, I admit its a paternalistic system. But we as a society aren’t prepared to say “too bad, so sad” to people who make poor choices in certain areas, so we take certain choices in particular critical areas away from the masses – you can’t hire your idiot cousin Bob to do your heart surgery, no matter how cut-rate his rates may be. You can argue that perhaps we should be more hardhearted, but we aren’t – we aren’t willing to watch you die because of your own idiocy. Licensing laws reflect that basic value judgment. **
I think pro se representation is allowed in part because it doesn’t happen very often – if there was a rash of pro se filings that started filling up dockets, I think you’d see reforms to limit the practice appear in a hurry. Its availabilty is also a reflection of the peculiarly American sense of rugged individualism. It is allowed more out of cultural tradition than for well-thought-out practical reasons.
Would you? And if you would, we wouldn’t most other people? Unless you think you are smarter than most other people.
And yet we allow people to make the null decision-- ie, to not seek medical treatment at all. How is that different from seeking treatment from a non-traditional practitioner.
At any rate, any argument you make about not allowing me to have my brother represent me, can also be made about having me represent myself.
2L here. For the benefit of anyone reading this thing from the start:
re bar exams as mentioned on page 1: I don’t think anyone pays much attention to the bar until after the third year. Passage rates from my school are close to 99%, though I didn’t know that when I applied here. Never even considered it. The reputation of the school was far more important than the bar.
As to opening up the bar to non-lawyers, although I have just taken on a considerable personal debt to become a lawyer, I would be in favor of opening the bar. For one thing, I don’t think much would change. People practicing law would still be judged on the results they earn for their clients, and without formal legal education I think the chances of getting good results are low. However, there are probably plenty of cases out there that someone could take on without an actual JD degree and win, and I think they ought to be able to do so. I’m not sure about criminal cases, in the criminal arena I would probably not want non-lawyers getting involved.
As to Milum ravings about the “selling of justice:” As has been pointed out, no one works for free and lawyers aren’t any different. By the time I graduate from law school I will have taken on considerable debt, plus foregone three years of income from the decent job I left to return to school. That is a high oppertunity cost, and one I deserve to be compensated for. Still, I’m not only, or even primarily, in it for the money. I absolutely love the material I am studying, and can’t wait to get out into practice. I count myself fortunate to have found a field where I can be well paid for doing something I enjoy. Milum would do well to remember that the only product a lawyer has to sell is his time, out of that hourly rate he has to pay all his overhead and his staff. So $300 an hour (a pretty high rate even by lawyer standards) may sound like alot, but it isn’t as if all of that money goes right into the lawyer’s pocket.