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What do lawyers do?

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Re: What do lawyers do?

#81

Post by mdanger007 »

giantg2 wrote: post #63
jrm4 wrote: post #38

Great analysis. Even though we see the warts all of the time, I'm so incredibly impressed by "law," and I didn't get to this point until I was well out of law school. 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 th…

My experience is that the system is rife with incompetence and convenient inconsistencies.

Justice is great for those who can afford it!

Re: What do lawyers do?

#82

Post by darkerside »

> Because on one hand, the judge believes himself to be bound by conventions and norms, the gravitational force of precedents, and the judge’s internal sense of what ought to be the result. On the other hand, these forces battle against various social forces and structural realities that are far more real than the canons about how you read statutes. Every judgment is the outcome of such a conflict.

Fascinating and excellent point, but I think I'd suggest one nuance to this interpretation. It works this way everywhere, but perhaps in India, the rule of law is in direct conflict with social norms, whereas other countries with rule of law have managed to align law with social convention to avoid this problem.

Imagine a judge interpreting a law that, for example, clearly assigns the death penalty to a child.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#83

Post by t_mann »

> Law is an impressionistic business, much less scientific than macroeconomics or inflation management

Not sure if this is an intended jab at economists or just an ironic misconception. Macroeconomics is arguably the academic discipline with the worst track record in terms of prediction, and inflation is the biggest mystery within there. I remember in 2014, then ECB president Mario Draghi was asked whether stimulus measures he had just announced wouldn't lead to inflation. His response (paraphrased from memory) - "Where is the inflation? We know it might come, but we don't see it. We see an immediate crisis, so we take are taking these measures to deal with that, once we see inflation we'll deal with that."

Re: What do lawyers do?

#84

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

Jugurtha wrote: post #58
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you thought about trying local small accounting firms/law firms for your taxes as opposed to monolith "big 4?" 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 s…

> have you thought about trying local small accounting firms/law firms for your taxes as opposed to monolith "big 4?" Yes, and we did. On several instances, we had silly problems like the accountant going to vacation right before tax deadline, other frustrations like communication problems. > 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…

>Yes, and we did. On several instances, we had silly problems like the accountant going to vacation right before tax deadline, other frustrations like communication problems.

are you saying a small firm's staff took a vacation during tax season? thats very strange. i have had partners in our firm delay their medical procedures til the end of tax season specifically because small offices run a tight ship and loss of a single person means the rest of the team has to stay up late. our office regularly does 82 hour shifts during tax season but i am not even bragging.

>Yes, and we did. On several instances, we had silly problems like the accountant going to vacation right before tax deadline, other frustrations like communication problems.

are you talking about an indian small accounting firm charging as much as a big 4? nice. i would love to be them.

the fees charged by small 1-2-5 partner firms are a magnitude lower than big 4 prices. Indirect tax audit fees is like 30-40K inr in a good small firm while big 4/big firms do not take on cases with fees less than 100-200K inr. But those are my anecdata between our fees and the fees i hear is being charged by friends on those places.

i would love to hear the anonymized specifics of the case, if you are so inclined to share with a total stranger.

anyways, good luck finding a good partner/firm

Re: What do lawyers do?

#85

Post by rootusrootus »

pm90 wrote: post #45
gunfighthacksaw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The repeal of Roe v Wade was a gut punch for me, but I’ve known it was entirely possible for quite a long time. Plus some states have had trigger laws forever so that’s hardly surprising. 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.

If you read the opinions they’re not very convincing. They’re making up principles to adhere to which did not exist before, and doing this for things that have broad support in the US population. So it is quite chaotic out of the blue kind. Essentially the Judges are ruling by decree and will strike down any law that’s not explicitly enumerated in the constitution (and even there they will certainly weaken the law as…

A lot of people think it's possible to read the constitution literally and divine what the words mean. To them, all of this makes perfect sense, because they can't see how the previous rulings ever fit what the constitution prescribes.

I sympathize, but clearly there is far more to our laws than just the words on that document. It's just the set of principles providing some foundation. Hell, we started with "congress shall make no law..." and extrapolated that all the way to pretty much any institution funded by taxes. Clearly a literal reading has limits.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#86

Post by civilized »

t_mann wrote: post #83

> Law is an impressionistic business, much less scientific than macroeconomics or inflation management Not sure if this is an intended jab at economists or just an ironic misconception. Macroeconomics is arguably the academic discipline with the worst track record in terms of prediction, and inflation is the biggest mystery within there. I remember in 2014, then ECB president Mario Draghi was asked whether stimulus m…

If it's not a jab at macro it's the most insane thing I've ever read. Macro has a couple successes but, whenever I have contact with it, it mostly seems to be a collection of competing, politically-flavored voodoo ideologies with no clear way to decide which if any is illuminating.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#87

Post by kurthr »

77pt77 wrote: post #62
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #55

“I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.” ― Voltaire Where US civil litigation (disputes) are concerned, a good lawyer looks to end the dispute before the cost of litigation approaches the value of the dispute. Once might argue the feature and bug of US tort law is the litigation becomes a third party in the case, against whom both sides must fight, hopefully finding a commo…

>“I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.” Says the man that made his fortune by winning a lawsuit when he rigged the lottery.

TIL:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/voltaire-enlighten...

Re: What do lawyers do?

#88

Post by humanistbot »

jrm4 wrote: post #38

Great analysis. Even though we see the warts all of the time, I'm so incredibly impressed by "law," and I didn't get to this point until I was well out of law school. 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 th…

You didn't have to read (new) legal realism or critical legal studies in law school?

Re: What do lawyers do?

#89

Post by rootusrootus »

dcow wrote: post #76
mlyle wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I do think it's being repulsed at the idea of killin' babies. Combined with not weighting the value of the choices of women or the impact on them or their bodies very high. Look, uh, abortion is kinda a yucky thing. There's not some bright-line moment of change and investiture with consciousness and being that happens at the moment of birth. It's only when you decide the choices and bodily autonomy of the adult w…

I have no religious affiliation beyond accepting others’ religions (I’m not atheist because ultimately atheism is overly restrictive in its worldview) and agree that abortion is way more nuanced than what modern feminists present. Personally, I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum at different points in my life. I believe I am now somewhere in the middle and the reasons are not in any way religious. They’re based on…

> I’m not atheist because ultimately atheism is overly restrictive in its worldview

I don't consider myself atheist either. But I do not believe in any sort of god. I figure 'atheist' actually goes a little too far in making assumptions, so I prefer 'ignostic.'

On the bright side, people hear what they want to hear when you use that term. A good chunk of my extended family, who I otherwise quite like, are evangelical christians and not particularly tolerant of atheists (they wouldn't spit in your face, but it makes them intensely uncomfortable). They don't hear 'ignostic' they hear 'agnostic' and that is considerably less offensive to them. I do not correct their understanding, because the conflict is unnecessary and would not improve anyone's life.

> the amount that people want to reduce this to “fuck religion”

A lot of blame for this lies with religious folks trying to make laws based on their religion. I get a little irritated about that myself. Your religion is your business, but I have every right to live my life free from your religious beliefs. As soon as they started making it a core part of their political platform, it became more acceptable to adopt the "fuck religion" attitude in response.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#90

Post by Veelox »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #41
gunfighthacksaw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The repeal of Roe v Wade was a gut punch for me, but I’ve known it was entirely possible for quite a long time. Plus some states have had trigger laws forever so that’s hardly surprising. 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.

As a slight tangent since you seem to be knowledgeable: what is the motivation of the anti abortion bloc? I feel that godliness and a true care for life yet unborn is not it, because the bloc does not exhibit these qualities in many other areas...

> what is the motivation of the anti abortion bloc?

I'm going to take this question seriously. The pro-life bloc is sincere when they say they think killing a fetus after conception is murder. They also on average have right leaning policy. Since you didn't list specifically what you meant by "exhibit these quantities" so this is guessing. I see a lot of arguments from left leaning folks that round to "if pro-life people were REALLY pro-life they would agree with all my policies (health care, climate change, gun control, ect)" and then use this argument to say pro-life people are liars. Nope, they just disagree about when killing the pre-born humans counts as murder.

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