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Law Documents in a Nutshell

Posted by chrisd on from the we-don't-need-no-stinking-law-school dept.

Ramakrishnan M writes "LawMeme has a two part article (more to come) on reading and interpreting Legalese for geeks, titled "Law School in a nutshell". Here is the Part 1 and part 2"

6 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. IAAL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Unlike 99% of the crap you'll read here, I AM a lawyer, however, this article has a lot of good information in it, even if you don't plan on being a lawyer.

  2. IANAL, but it this guy? by spRed · · Score: 2, Informative
    have noticed the word "Id"... it's short for "idem"

    Or 'idem' and 'id' are both short for ibidem.

    But like I said IANAL, I just took a few years of latin...

    --
    .sig Karma out the wazoo, better to spend points elsewhere if this is above 2 or below 0
    1. Re:IANAL, but it this guy? by spRed · · Score: 2, Informative

      posted too quickly,

      Scholarly types prefer to abbreviate the same (ibidem) as 'ibid' when referencing the same thing again in footnotes.
      I don't know why they each picked a different way, it just is.

      --
      .sig Karma out the wazoo, better to spend points elsewhere if this is above 2 or below 0
    2. Re:IANAL, but it this guy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      No. "Idem" means "the same". "Ibidem" means "in the same place". (I think it is a contraction of "ibi", which means "there" or "in that place", with "idem".)

      "Id." is short for "idem", and "ibid." is short for "ibidem", although it saves only one character.

      (I'm not a lawyer, but I work with lawyers and study Latin.)

  3. Re:lawyer banner ads by XorNand · · Score: 3, Informative


    I know this is +1 Funny put since you've mentioned it; state bar associations generally dictate how attorneys may and may not advertise their services. Most other professionals (doctors, real estate brokers, financial advisors, etc.) are kept on a similarly short leash.

    --
    Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
  4. IAAL, Observations by mbstone · · Score: 3, Informative

    1. The article is right-on as far as the law being a system not unlike a computer (although there are human foibles and biases built in on many levels). As my former .sig says, Laws are ROMS, courts are CPUs.

    2. Going to law school is a shitty career move, at least money-wise, for a computer geek. Aside from the three years of negative income, big law firms won't hire you unless you go to Harvard or some "top 25" law school and/or your grades are good enough to get on law review. Your IT skills are mostly irrelevant to the law job market. If you have an engineering degree you might possibly be able to get into patent law. If you enter private practice, you will discover that....

    3. Computer geeks make crappy law clients. They already think they know everything. They are far happier as pro pers (people who try to represent themselves in court as their own lawyers).

    4. IT pays better and you don't have to deal with shit from clients, some of whom will lose in court because they deserve to, and will then be pissed at you and file bogus bar complaints and malpractice suits. Did you rent Cape Fear?

    5. Some clients are insane (see (3)).