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Justice Stevens reads the fine print

matthewbutterick.com

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Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#131

Post by rileymat2 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #92
lordnacho wrote: post #43

Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex. It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. It's basically impossible to read the docs for all the services you buy, and even if you did you wouldn't know what it meant in terms of law. Yet we have lawyers talking through the technical minutiae as if they are source code. There's a huge d…

> or they're just as good as any other lawyer My experience is that some advocates are much better than most advocates. The best lawyer I've had was a trainee barrister, standing in for a run-of-the-mill high-street solicitor, who couldn't show up. Presumably because she was a trainee, she did a really meticulous job for me, on what was a trivial offence: speeding. Few lawyers would put much effort into a speeding ti…

Isn’t this a great example of what the OP was talking about? You did not get off because of absolute innocence, but “technical minutiae as if they are source code”.

But it does answer the OPs question, some are better at navigating it.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#132

Post by jlokier »

makeitdouble wrote: post #126
mjevans wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully; No. A standard library of terms, preferably from the highest (and thus widest covering) level of government, should be the bulk and basis of all widely common contracts. I shouldn't have to re-read 40+ pages when I renew my dwelling's rental lease for another year; this should not be one more thing that has to be shopped around for. Don't provide an illusion of choice (as if we the people really have on…

Can’t you have auto-renewing clauses on your lease, with only small contractual updates every year on the points that effectively changed ? That’s what I had on every appartment I rented. As you say it wouldn’t make sense to go through the building’s description every single year when nothing has changed. Otherwise, an issue with having “standard” clauses, and only the differential in your contract, is your knowledge…

In the UK it is to the landlord and their agent's benefit to repeatedly terminate your 12 months (minus 1 day) home lease, and have you sign a new one, with arrangement fees of course.

That's to make sure it is classed as a short term tenancy, less than 12 months, even if you live there for a decade.

Full legal tenancy rights don't kick in unless you have a lease longer than 12 months. As a result, I've never heard of anyone being offered such a lease.

Having an "auto-renewing clause" in an existing tenancy would defeat that benefit to the landlord. You'd better read the terms on the new lease each time, just in case something changed. But you can use your choice of "diff" tool; it's probably the same as the previous time, including typos.

(Commercial (business) leases are the opposite. Commercial landlords often want to offer only long leases (say 5 or more years), because that arrangement gives them strong rights to be paid for the entire term, no matter if the business wants to leave.)

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#133

Post by mschuster91 »

tinco wrote: post #99
mjevans wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully; No. A standard library of terms, preferably from the highest (and thus widest covering) level of government, should be the bulk and basis of all widely common contracts. I shouldn't have to re-read 40+ pages when I renew my dwelling's rental lease for another year; this should not be one more thing that has to be shopped around for. Don't provide an illusion of choice (as if we the people really have on…

I bought my house on a contract that was based off the national standard contract for residence transactions. Deviations from the standard were clearly marked. Regardless the contract was read to me by the realtor when I signed for the intent to buy, and the most important points were reiterated by the notary when confirming the actual transaction. It was great I found it useful and comforting to know I was signing f…

House sales are complex enough that most people use common template contracts, simply because it makes the interaction with the required third parties (realtors, notaries, public record offices, lawyers, banks) more efficient by a large enough margin.

Rental however? Almost everyone uses their own crap contracts or some decades old template contract, and usually there is no one involved except the landlord and the renter. And because there is no need for more efficiency, the market can't and won't push for standard contracts.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#134

Post by throwaway0a5e »

lordnacho wrote: post #43

Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex. It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. It's basically impossible to read the docs for all the services you buy, and even if you did you wouldn't know what it meant in terms of law. Yet we have lawyers talking through the technical minutiae as if they are source code. There's a huge d…

What's likely to happen is we develop some sort of UCC-esque base contract that normalizes all the fine print boilerplate so that future contracts can just reference it in a manner to the tune of "these terms of service are like literally every other terms of service you agree to but with the following exceptions/specifications".

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#135

Post by antattack »

lordnacho wrote: post #43

Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex. It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. It's basically impossible to read the docs for all the services you buy, and even if you did you wouldn't know what it meant in terms of law. Yet we have lawyers talking through the technical minutiae as if they are source code. There's a huge d…

Part of a solution could be to require fine print and it's revisions to be posted online so it's easily accessible and up-to-date.

Once fine-print is published we could have a review sites (similar to fact checking sites) that could extract the essence from the fine print and point out major points, issues, etc.

Another, solution that would dis-incentivize 'kitchen-sink' contracts would be ability to invalidate whole contract if one of the clauses is found invalid.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#136

Post by irrational »

> Though David Foster Wallace’s famous jour­nal­istic argu­ment against cruising had damp­ened my interest

Uh, did anyone else click this link? If you did, you find find a pdf that is effectively impossible to read on a mobile device. This seems ironic in an article about being able to read the fine print.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#137

Post by denton-scratch »

rileymat2 wrote: post #131
denton-scratch wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or they're just as good as any other lawyer My experience is that some advocates are much better than most advocates. The best lawyer I've had was a trainee barrister, standing in for a run-of-the-mill high-street solicitor, who couldn't show up. Presumably because she was a trainee, she did a really meticulous job for me, on what was a trivial offence: speeding. Few lawyers would put much effort into a speeding ti…

Isn’t this a great example of what the OP was talking about? You did not get off because of absolute innocence, but “technical minutiae as if they are source code”. But it does answer the OPs question, some are better at navigating it.

I don't think it's "technical minutiae"; I was charged with an offence that I didn't commit. My advocate just took the trouble to read the Act that I was charged under. Given that the court knew I hadn't committed the offence I was charged with, it would certainly have been a miscarriage of justice to go on and convict me anyway, and I could have got it overturned on appeal.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#138

Post by lesam »

makeitdouble wrote: post #85
lordnacho wrote: post #43

Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex. It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. It's basically impossible to read the docs for all the services you buy, and even if you did you wouldn't know what it meant in terms of law. Yet we have lawyers talking through the technical minutiae as if they are source code. There's a huge d…

> It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. I think incredibly long EULAs would be fine if violation on technicalities were lighter, and/or critical sections were put on top, in plain language. For instance, I wouldn't care much about Youtube's terms and services outside of what would warrant an account ban, and what's the privacy boundaries. If Googl…

Re: the house, no, most people don’t sit and read it: https://themortgagereports.com/39671/home-closing-what-you-n... .

Even professional investors with millions of dollars of investments don’t appear to read or negotiate the documents until it looks like it might matter: https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2022/03/odd-lots-pod...

People just don’t care that much about legal documents until it looks like it will matter. People’s choice of individual contract provisions at most wage earning jobs, health care, rentals, or vacations is basically nil - they mostly don’t care to read it and so the writers of the contracts put in egregious terms.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#139

Post by throwaway0a5e »

paxys wrote: post #5

Related to the opening of this article – it is interesting to see how one can get completely soured on certain products or experiences because, by virtue of their profession, they see the dirty underbelly of how things in that industry actually work. Someone who has read cruise contracts in detail will never want to go on one. Cooks with experience in commercial kitchens never want to eat at a restaurant again. Someo…

>My conclusion ultimately is – everything is running on goodwill and duct tape, and ignorance is bliss.

And the most infuriating part of it is that everyone acts like subject they don't understand in detail can and should be expected to be perfect.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#140

Post by adolph »

lordnacho wrote: post #43

Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex. It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. It's basically impossible to read the docs for all the services you buy, and even if you did you wouldn't know what it meant in terms of law. Yet we have lawyers talking through the technical minutiae as if they are source code. There's a huge d…

> Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex.

Yeah, there outta be a law 'bout it

> Then there's the money.

Single payer law is an idea whose time has come.

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