How to solve the problem with lawyers...

[naruki_oni]

This morning I woke up with the solution to everyone's lawyer problems! The simplicity and effectiveness of it is mind-boggling, and it doesn't require widescale lawyercide.

The problem is not so much that we have so many lawyers. It's that there are good ones and bad ones (as in, competent and not), and Joe Citizen cannot afford a good one. Richie Rich, on the other hand, can get whatever he wants.

That's a bit simplified, and there are plenty of exceptions, so don't think I'm just bashing rich folk.

But that is a critical part of the problem with "getting justice".

The solution is to nationalize lawyers. Or at least make them all state employees. They get a specific payscale as any other government employee does, but they don't charge their clients for services.

The obvious flaw in this plan is their dependence on the State for income, and the idea that they may thus show unprofessional bias (conflict of interest) when litigating between State and Joe Citizen.

First, we've got far worse corruption today anyway, and even Richie Rich has trouble winning against the government, so that hardly would matter. Second, we put in very strong protections for these lawyers from being punished if they work hard against the State.

Sure, it's not a perfect solution, but it's a hell of a lot better than what we've got.

Richie Rich will no longer be able to buy his son out of jail for raping Joe Citizen's daughter (or son). Joe Citizen will no longer be hopelessly screwed when trying to recover payment for the landscaping work he did that Richie Rich decided not to pay for.

Lots of inequities and injustices can be repaired in this way.

What do you think? Silly idea?

Comments

How much money do lawyers make nowadays?

[naruki-oni.livejournal.com]

With Dick and Bush in the White House, I think it's obvious we've given up on any facade of caring about "conflict of interest" about 4 years ago.

Seriously, the conflict of interest issue is one that would need to be worked on, but it's not insurmountable. And otherwise it should be okay.

Half or more of the craptacular legal system is there simply to make lawyers indispensible. That's the incentive behind the fact that lawyers do what they can to make the system more difficult.

If we socialize the legal profession, that removes the incentive to fuck with the legal system. It means the lawyers will now want things to be as simple as possible, because they don't get paid more just to keep Joe Citizen from going it alone.

Taxes would actually go down after the full effect of such a system was in place.

A helluva lot more than teachers. :)

[thewrongcrowd.livejournal.com]

And that might be the biggest argument against socializing lawyers (he he, some of the lawyers I know are hardly paper-trained, much less socialized...). The people attracted to teaching either really love it and want to be there (which would be a good thing) or literally can't make a living doing anything else and are wedged in their bureaucratic niche (a bad thing).

Re: How much money do lawyers make nowadays?

[niwikki.livejournal.com]

And what sort of representation could a person expect from a lawyer who gets paid the same whether they spend any time on your case or not? would you expect that lawyer to work overtime to make sure that they got every document and piece of evidence they could from the other side, or to make sure they meet the deadlines? Would you expect them to argue that a law should be changed because its result is unjust?

And what about the clients who distrust the government - the ones who need protection from the government. Do you really see them being willing to approach an attorney who's an employee of the government when they're in need of help? When you're an employee of the government, who's your client? The person who walks in the door begging for help, or the entity that pays your salary and can fire you?

That's a weak argument...

[naruki-oni.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps a very strong one for getting rid of ALL government jobs.

And your last argument just completely ignored my part about putting in protections from the "the boss can fire you" trick.

Maybe I'm odd, but I never get this emotional when someone starts talking about my profession.

You're not the only person I've seen get really riled up at an "outsider" talking about your profession. Most recently it was a pharmacist who got really pissed because I said pharmacist's should follow professional ethics rather than personal morals.

You, being (soon) a lawyer, are going to be in my position a hell of a lot. Meaning, you're going to be an outsider telling people what's wrong with their jobs. How would you try to do that without them getting bent out of shape at you?

Re: That's a weak argument...

[niwikki.livejournal.com]

I'd start by not putting up with people saying that all people in X profession are inherently unethical. I wouldn't want people to be on the defensive thinking I agreed with the statements made by ignorant people who insist on applying negative stereotypes across the board to a group where they may actually apply to only as many as 5-10% of the people in the group.

Second, I'd try to understand the profession and how it's run. I wouldn't make assumptions, being an outsider.

Third, I wouldn't try to tell them how to do their job. I'd ask them how they think they can change, and I'd try to focus on the purpose for the profession to exist in the first place.

Of course, I'm NOT going into a position where I'll be telling people what's wrong with their jobs. I don't know anyone who does that, and I'm not sure why you think that's what lawyers do.

I don't know what your profession is, but maybe it's one that doesn't get attacked nearly daily by people suggesting that the best thing that could happen in this world would be to get rid of your profession entirely, possibly even by killing everyone who chose to take up your profession. It gets rather tiring, and you get to the point that you hold out home that the more intelligent people will see the reason in the purpose of keeping the profession around... and then you get slapped in the face by an otherwise intelligent person indicating they really have no clue why your profession exists in the first place and why it's organized how it is.

I had held out hope that you of all people would understand the need for attorneys to be separate and independent from the government.

It makes me wonder whether anyone who hasn't studied law (whether or not with the intent to practice law) is aware of the true need for independent attorneys, and makes me lose hope that my likely future profession (no longer by choice, now by necessity to pay off student loans) will be able to persist under such persecution and misunderstanding.

You mean you'd fail immediately.

[naruki-oni.livejournal.com]

When you are telling someone else how to do their jobs, you would start by not putting up with them saying something about some other profession? That doesn't make sense.

Your second reason is good.

Third is bad. You are telling them how to do their job. That's inescapable. It's part of the condition set for this exercise, as well as being modeled after what you will be doing in practice.

Plus, your "focus on the purpose for the profession to exist" is unprofessional of you. If a profession is needed, then you focus on what's necessary to be changed. If it's not needed, then you have a whole other situation to deal with. You just assume a profession is needed, and that's not what a lawyer is supposed to do.

Naturally, a lot of lawyers don't do that, I suppose. But anyone who sues a company for bad practices is telling them how to do their jobs. Suing doctors for malpractice, for example. Or going into environmental law, for another.

I mentioned the pharmacist getting upset that I was telling him how to do his job (except I didn't know he was one until we were well into the discussion). I don't think pharmacists get the same kind of insulting treatment that lawyers get, but he responded just as emotionally as you or anyone else. And I've seen plenty of people in my own profession get the same way.

I'm obviously not someone who wants to "kill all the lawyers", but I do think the fact that we cannot function without them is a Very Bad Thing.

You don't seem to want to even consider such an argument yet, let alone rationally discuss it without feeling personally "slapped in the face". I happen to know at least two lawyers who would have no trouble with this discussion, if that helps you understand that just being a lawyer is no reason for being overly sensitive to rational discussion about it.

And believe me, this has been rational discussion on my part. I could pretend to do "persecution and misunderstanding" if you wanted to see the difference, but I don't think you could take it, and I certainly wouldn't be sincere in giving it.

Re: You mean you'd fail immediately.

[niwikki.livejournal.com]

When you are telling someone else how to do their jobs, you would start by not putting up with them saying something about some other profession? That doesn't make sense.

Of course that doesn't make sense because that's not what I believed I was saying. If forced to tell someone else how to do their job, I wouldn't put up with OUTSIDE PEOPLE telling this someone else that all people in their profession are inherently unethical, because if I did so then this person I was trying to convince to change would have no reason to listen to me at all.

Plus, your "focus on the purpose for the profession to exist" is unprofessional of you. If a profession is needed, then you focus on what's necessary to be changed. If it's not needed, then you have a whole other situation to deal with. You just assume a profession is needed, and that's not what a lawyer is supposed to do.

The focus on the purpose is not a question of whether it SHOULD exist, but WHY it exists, so you can make sure when you "change" the job, you're not defeating its entire purpose.

As for the rest:
- I have acknowledged your point about not being able to subsist without lawyers. I don't agree that this is solely the fault of lawyers, but rather the fault of convoluted government, which most definitely would not become LESS convoluted if you have them take over the legal profession.
- If I'm coming across as upset, it's probably left over from Krikkert's assertions and his refusal to acknowledge his stance as unreasonably overbroad (and thereby placing me within the category of people he considers to be unethical and unworthy of listening to so far as opinions about ethics in the legal profession), and your complete lack of response to those assertions in that portion of the thread. I've never claimed to be an unemotional person. My emotions affect me, even after the thing that caused the emotion dissipates. I consider myself human in that regard.
- I'm not feeling slapped in the face by this particular discussion, but I do feel this is a topic that comes up far too often for my liking and there's NEVER anyone else that I see standing up for the ethical lawyers who not only exist but are, in my opinion, far more numerous than unethical ones. The slap in the face is coming from society at large and the entirety of the situation, not any one discussion or post.
- I did not think I was accusing you of persecution and misunderstanding. I was expressing my frustration and noting what I believe WILL happen to my profession should things continue as they have been with seemingly nobody willing to stand up for the legal profession. Up until this point, I had been able to delude myself into thinking that it was only closed-minded idiots who thought that lawyers were the bane of civilization. Now that I'm confronted with the fact that even intelligent people feel that way, I don't know what's going to become of my profession. I think I have the right to be concerned.

I'm not a debator. I'm not a trial lawyer, nor will I be. I'm not excessively good with words (which is one of the major reasons I'm kicking myself for being silly enough to give up my life and incur over $100k in debt go to law school in the first place). If I phrased anything poorly, please chalk it up to poor phrasing rather than malicious meaning.