31–40 of 156 posts
One of the very nuanced discussions I had in the last few years was with an IP lawyer when I started my company. His questions and solution was very insightful. I wouldn't have arrived at such an elegant solution myself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point is that the vast majority of what lawyers do has nothing to do with judges. It has to do with drafting contracts and interpreting legislation and legal precedent. Talking about good lawyers sometimes being able to communicate and coming prepared is limited to a small subset of barrister work. [edit for clarity]: I overstated the first sentence. I should have said that the vast majority of what lawyers do doe…
Incorrect, especially the statement that “the vast majority of what lawyers do has nothing to do with judges. It has to do with drafting contracts and interpreting legislation and legal precedent.” I think you’re confusing arbitration or litigation as the aspects of lawyering which involve judges. In fact, just about all actions undertaken by lawyers are with an eventual audience of a courtroom and a judge in mind. Y…
You changed the topic to be “with an eventual audience of a courtroom and a judge in mind”, which I don’t disagree with. This needs to be the consideration, even though the vast majority of work never ends up having that audience. But this has nothing to do with being a good communicator that shows up prepared, as per the article.
One story about India. I didn't go there for the patent case I was on, too bad (I'm not Indian, so please pardon and correct my ignorance if you are). They have barristers and solicitors, like the UK. The barrister is the one who goes to court for you. What I found interesting is, you meet your barrister for about half an hour before he goes to court. That's the extent of your contact with him. His main job is to kno…
Source: High school buddy of mine does this exact thing for land revenue cases.
One story about India. I didn't go there for the patent case I was on, too bad (I'm not Indian, so please pardon and correct my ignorance if you are). They have barristers and solicitors, like the UK. The barrister is the one who goes to court for you. What I found interesting is, you meet your barrister for about half an hour before he goes to court. That's the extent of your contact with him. His main job is to kno…
Oh no India did away with the solicitor - barrister distinction. There's only one category now - advocates. So you'll find people who will use the title ``solicitor'' to describe themselves and the work they do, which is akin to what UK solicitors do - but every lawyer in India can go officially go to court and fight cases. The solicitor types are mostly seen in specialised fields like patents and revenue law, and th…
> In societies somewhere in between, with a flawed rule of law, like India, these predictions are impossibly hard to make. I think this is overselling the stability of the judicial process in the UK, US and other countries with a strong grounding in the rule of law. Without getting to political, sometimes judicial controversies spring up in the US. The issue is there are centuries of norms to fall back on. India does…
> sometimes judicial controversies spring up in the US. I think you are massively understating the instability the SCOTUS has presented in the past few weeks by overturning existing case law.
Yes, there will be instability, but it’s not the chaotic out-of-the-blue kind, unless you’re wilfully ignorant of the anti abortion movement, or extremely naive to the motivations of that bloc.
the jury has absolute power in a courtroom. The judge only conducts.
-- having been through a fair share of business lawyers over the years - i've finally figured out what I like about the guy I settled on - risk assumption & mitigation - my lawyer explains the risks of different approaches - as well as the potential costs - many lawyers I've used in the past are expensive & cause a lot of issues - I'm not a lawyer - I understand business law at a basic level - if my lawyer says: do i…
When I started handling a business, I had stumbled upon several problems dealing with our accounting firm (big 4). I caught several mistakes the people they assigned to our account made (such as including VAT in an six figure invoice that was exempted in a particular case. It almost seems they were working for the revenue service). Worse, once they made a mistake registering a new employee for social security, then s…
big 4 people will have the best paid execs and partners but the leg work is made to be done by interns and stuff. On the other hand, in a small firm, its all hands on deck to finish/work on a case.
i am a lawyer/accountant in india handling business/litigation of businesses. as a representative of the smaller boutique firms, i would suggest you look up your local firms first as they are more inclined to give more attention and care to your work
Why I'm impressed is how well the law holds itself together in the face of the massive weight of influences that have every reason in the world to try to corrupt it. It's just all too easy to speculate (or read historically) how easy it is to corrupt this kind of power (religion, violence, fear etc) and how this general notion of "No, we're going to dress up like grownups and do our damndest to figure this out with reasoning" is so great.
> In societies somewhere in between, with a flawed rule of law, like India, these predictions are impossibly hard to make. I think this is overselling the stability of the judicial process in the UK, US and other countries with a strong grounding in the rule of law. Without getting to political, sometimes judicial controversies spring up in the US. The issue is there are centuries of norms to fall back on. India does…
> sometimes judicial controversies spring up in the US. I think you are massively understating the instability the SCOTUS has presented in the past few weeks by overturning existing case law.
What do barristers do. The author seems to skip the entire solicitor component of the legal profession.
I think this is covered. Ultimately, everything comes down to court, but he said:
"and can write and say things to maximise the odds of the judge doing what you want him to do."
That is-- they know how a court is likely to look at things, and know how to construct contracts and advise clients so that if a dispute ever emerges they are likely to prevail... or rather, that it will be so obvious that they will prevail that no one will even bother with litigation.