What do lawyers do? • Hacker News Board

Re: What do lawyers do?

#141

Post by ddingus » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

rgifford wrote: post #135

d110af5ccf wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mostly in the dwindling twilight of their cognitive ability Have you actually read SCOTUS trial transcripts? Because they come across as incredibly sharp people to me even when I don't agree with their views. > A lot of modern psychology suggests they can't. Actually there are psychology studies examining professionals who have to deal with bias (scientists, judges, etc) that indicate that the competent ones tend t…

> Have you actually read SCOTUS trial transcripts? Because they come across as incredibly sharp people to me even when I don't agree with their views. Yes. Get nine professionals together to write a subject matter document over a year. I don't care who they are, that document will appear at least superficially put together. I have lots of thoughts/criticism. This isn't the conversation for that, so here's just one of…

While I agree with the legislature is not representing the people well at all, I disagree on pace of tech change being the reason.

The reason is money. Specifically, bribes are legal here, even encouraged.

The product of that is a government representing money, not the people, and our law says we should be self governed, not lorded over as we have seen happen for quite a while now.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#142

Post by systemvoltage » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

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…

I am always impressed by lawyers. Even bad ones. They all seem to have this unwavering intellectualism that governs how they speak, write, and engage in their profession.

For instance, I find Supreme Court opinions interesting to read because they have a tremendous gravitas and intellectual discourse. Compare this with reading memos of the executive branch for passing a bill or listening to politicians in congress.

Law and the profession of Lawyers is fantastically fine. I don't see this in any other profession, even Doctors.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#143

Post by akomtu » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

rgifford wrote: post #133

d110af5ccf wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a time when white men lived, on average, to the ripe old age of 38 That is a meaningless figure. Those that survived to adulthood had similar lifespans to us. > I'm tired of treating anything the founding fathers came up with as sacred. This is a common refrain from people who want to change things as they see fit against the wishes of those who disagree with them. If there were broad consensus to change the law as…

> If there were broad consensus to change the law as written then presumably the legislature would vote to do so. The legislature does not represent popular interests any more and hasn't for years [1]. This is widely studied and accepted. You can see it plainly even in its demographic and socioeconomic composition. We don't have enough of a shared reality here to come to agreement and should agree to disagree. 1. htt…

That's a cute study you've linked: "opinions of average citizens don't matter, it's the money and power that make the law." This must be the greatest revelation since Ancient Greece.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#144

Post by systemvoltage » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

vivegi wrote: post #31

IANAL. However, I have worked with lawyers when I worked in a large corp and one thing they did consistently well was highlighting risk and providing the business unit with information on where the landmines lie. 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 sol…

Same, we paid $10k for a IP lawyer consultation which included 1) 2 hour meeting understanding the details 2) A memo with their judgement and advice, about 4 pages in total, delivered 3 weeks later.

During the first meeting, the attorney's assistant was jotting down every detail of our conversation. Questions were so incredibly detailed that it had us scratching our heads.

It is always impressive to work with lawyers, especially from a reputable IP law firm.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#145

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:13 PM UTC

rgifford wrote: post #101

throwaway5752 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. The difficult thing, on this forum, is it is weighted towards younger and very accomplished computer scientists. Sometimes the impulse, when seeing complexity that's hard to understand (medicine, regulation, law), is to be frustrated and dismiss it. Law is amazing and much older than programming, and one of the underrated human inventions. The fact we aren't constantly killing each other over small dispu…

> Law is amazing and much older than programming... And boy does it show. Recent events have me examining The Supreme Court and American law from a programmers perspective. And let me tell you, there are warts: The Supreme Court is comprised of lifelong appointees, mostly in the dwindling twilight of their cognitive ability. This made sense when we didn't understand cognitive decline. Now with the rapid pace of techn…

> The Supreme Court is comprised of lifelong appointees, mostly in the dwindling twilight of their cognitive ability. This made sense when we didn't understand cognitive decline. Now with the rapid pace of technological progress, it's a joke.

The Supreme Court is not that old. Only two are in their (early) 70s, and three are in their 50s. John Roberts, the median aged judge, and is about the same age as Bill Gates.

And you're wrong about the science. Crystallized intelligence grows with age and is stable into one's 70s. Vocabulary, for example, peaks in one's late 60's and early 70's. https://news.mit.edu/2015/brain-peaks-at-different-ages-0306

Fluid intelligence peaks at age 20, but judges aren't being tested on their ability to solve timed logic puzzles.

> The whole legal rationalist ideal that you can start from the base principles of the constitution and reason up indefinitely is ridiculous.

I agree it's ridiculous. The Constitution is a rulebook, not a set of principles to use as a starting point. "What would these words have meant to the people who wrote them?" That's how we interpret any other document. It's not hard.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#146

Post by drc500free » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:22 PM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #129

One skill of lawyers is that they understand the context of words and their meaning in the judicial system. I often see untrained people making arguments on reddit about the law where they're picking apart words into the meaning they want to have them and constructing a legal parallel universe where the law means what they hope it means. And they can point at dictionary definitions for each word to back up their inte…

Great points. I've also noticed that tech people can struggle to accept that the legal system has different outcomes depending on a person's intent, and methods for determining what that intent was.

There are many ways that interpreting law isn't the same as executing code, but that's the one I run into over and over. A judge isn't a CPU, and neither is a jury. They can differentiate superficially similar actions.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#147

Post by nocoiner » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:43 PM UTC

rgifford wrote: post #101

throwaway5752 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. The difficult thing, on this forum, is it is weighted towards younger and very accomplished computer scientists. Sometimes the impulse, when seeing complexity that's hard to understand (medicine, regulation, law), is to be frustrated and dismiss it. Law is amazing and much older than programming, and one of the underrated human inventions. The fact we aren't constantly killing each other over small dispu…

> Law is amazing and much older than programming... And boy does it show. Recent events have me examining The Supreme Court and American law from a programmers perspective. And let me tell you, there are warts: The Supreme Court is comprised of lifelong appointees, mostly in the dwindling twilight of their cognitive ability. This made sense when we didn't understand cognitive decline. Now with the rapid pace of techn…

> - Rigorous, regular cognitive testing after for all licensed legal professionals older than 45. You have to pass a test to drive in old age, but you can sentence someone to life in prison no problem.

Possibly I’m focusing too much on this point as a lawyer in his early 40s, but would it be fair to assume this cognitive testing regime should be applied to all intellectually demanding professions? Like medicine and finance and, say, software engineering?

Not sure whether to be alarmed by your proposal and the offhanded way in which you threaten my livelihood, or take solace in the fact that maybe I’ll be exempt from it since I’m a corporate lawyer and can’t sentence anyone to shit. Though, really, mostly I’m amused by it and your serene confidence in making prescriptions about entire fields you seem to have little familiarity with.

Re: What do lawyers do?

#148

Post by formerkrogemp » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 11:56 PM UTC

quacked wrote: post #72

notriddle wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also forgot midwifing, babysitting, and education. No professional lives forever, so a civilization must constantly grow and train replacements.

Midwifing is medicine, babysitting is not an industry, and formal education was invented in the 1800s. People have been capable of educating each other and watching children without full-time school for thousands of years, it's only recently that westerners completely forgot how to do it.

> People have been capable of educating each other and watching children without full-time school for thousands of years, it's only recently that westerners completely forgot how to do it.

You sound ignorant of how western society works. Cost of living has increased significantly in the west and globally so that both parents must work to provide for children, especially in urban areas. Work opportunities are often only to be found in urban areas away from grandparents and other potential caretakers. You should reexamine your priors, assumptions, and unnecessary biases. Or, have you completely forgotten how to learn?

Re: What do lawyers do?

#149

Post by roenxi » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 12:44 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #95

calvinmorrison wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and "the gloves are off". If the entire government just spent 2 years justifying the coerced vaccination of the masses - all thought bodily autonomy thrown out for the greater good? Sure the Rightwingers are happy to play that game as well.

IMO comparing vaccination to women's bodily autonomy is a bad faith argument. Vaccination is about protecting society -- the protection it offers individuals who get the vaccine is incidental. Anti-abortion folks have a stronger argument, IMO, by focusing on the liberty of the unborn child. Both sides refuse to give up ground, however, for political reasons. The logical conclusion is that there is a point somewhere o…

> IMO comparing vaccination to women's bodily autonomy is a bad faith argument.

That seems a somewhat inflammatory lead, but as far as I can tell you haven't explained or argued for it. It is obvious that the people who want to criminalise abortion believe it is about protecting society; if it were their babies they wouldn't need to criminalise it.

So far the only hard evidence about the COVID vaccines is that they offer excellent individual protection. It appears that the community protection just involves reducing the rate of spread rather than the reach, and since we're dealing with an exponential process it potentially has little practical effect. We ran a natural experiment in Australia that suggested there was no community protection effect. The spread of COVID through the community was basically instantaneous when lockdowns lifted in December [0].

[0] https://chrisbillington.net/COVID_NSW.html

Re: What do lawyers do?

#150

Post by smitty1e » Sun, Jul 03, 2022, 1:43 AM UTC

rgifford wrote: post #101

throwaway5752 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. The difficult thing, on this forum, is it is weighted towards younger and very accomplished computer scientists. Sometimes the impulse, when seeing complexity that's hard to understand (medicine, regulation, law), is to be frustrated and dismiss it. Law is amazing and much older than programming, and one of the underrated human inventions. The fact we aren't constantly killing each other over small dispu…

> Law is amazing and much older than programming... And boy does it show. Recent events have me examining The Supreme Court and American law from a programmers perspective. And let me tell you, there are warts: The Supreme Court is comprised of lifelong appointees, mostly in the dwindling twilight of their cognitive ability. This made sense when we didn't understand cognitive decline. Now with the rapid pace of techn…

> mostly in the dwindling twilight of their cognitive ability

Very, very difficult to generalize. For every very public zombie one could name, there are plenty who are sharp to their last heartbeat.