Law Documents in a Nutshell

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"

Comments

I Am *Still* Not A Lawyer

[HillClimber]

I appreciate the attempt to inform, but it seems to me this falls into the category of "a little bit of knowledge is dangerous". The pages bill themselves as "3 years of law school in a nutshell", as if you'd get a quick overview of relevant law for geeks. However, it is an analysis of one particular court filing, and based on my 15+ years dealing with legal docs and lawyers (as a techie, IASNAL), I didn't find a scrap of it relevant to software licensing, employment contracts, stock option agreements, or confidentiality agreements. You may find it entertaining, but it's not going to help you deal with the legal issues that you come across in the real world.

Re:I Am *Still* Not A Lawyer

[Eppie]

IAAL, and while this tutorial won't help you read a contract or understand license issues, it serves a useful though narrow purpose. This tutorial will actually help you begin to parse briefs, which is useful for understanding legal battles featured in the news.

It's more than just entertainment. There is social utility in lay people understanding the legal arguments presented in a case.

Get a real legal education

[AntiFreeze]

With the amount of "IANAL" legal advice given on slashdot and through other mediums, I'm actually sort of scared about what this "bringing the law to the layman" type of article will actually accomplish. Now, although this article looks like it's geared more towards helping one disect a court's opinion than help lawyer want-to-bes, I'm still afraid of the ramifications of those who take this "law documents in a nutshell" as a substitute for actually learning the law.

The more people who think they know the law but are unaware of its subtleties and precedants make for a less intelligent exchange of ideas and more "I know what I'm talking about, listen to me, not them" type of exchanges.

I know this for two reasons: I come from a family of lawyers and legal experts, and I tend to fall into the "I'm correct, damnit!" category I just mentioned. Therefore, I'm usually shot down by the legal minds in my family, even when I'm being particularly intelligent in my own right, or *cough* quoting a piece of "+5 Insightful" legal advice gleaned from slashdot.

There is no substitute for a real legal education and pursuing real-world applications (be you a judge, law professor, trial lawyer or law clerk). I guess what I'm really attempting to say is that thinking you know something is no replacement for actually knowing that thing. Not that having a law degree makes you eligable to offer legal advice (I wouldn't ask an IP lawyer for help with closing on a house), but it does place you in better standing.

Use this article to help you better understand the legal document you are reading, do NOT use it to further legal advice to others -- that is not what this article, or any other like it, is meant for.
</rant>

Re:Get a real legal education

[Get Behind the Mule]

I see some sense in what you're saying, but I'm troubled by the implication that those of us without an extensive education must necessarily have little to say about matters of law. If we were talking about some obscure science that is hardly relevant to our daily lives, the idea would be less troubling. But this is stuff that impacts everybody in essential ways, and in a democracy, we have an obligation to form opinions about law, and especially about whether laws should be changed, and whether courts rule properly in their cases.

I also have a family connection to law, since my father is a lawyer. And when I've spoken to him about his cases, ever since I was a little kid, he has always taken the time to explain as much as he could about the facts, the law, the Constitution, and of course all of the coutroom politicking and dynamics that go on. It required a lot of long conversations, but he always encouraged me to develop my own understanding and opinions about what the law is, what it should be, and what the courts did and did not do correctly. I think it can only be in the lawyers' interests if all citizens try to do this as well as they can.

Don't we need a translator *the other way*?

[edashofy]

Don't we need a translator that goes the other way? As far as I know, Geeks are smart people, and take a more common-sense approach to the world than the law does.

What we really need is a tutorial on GeekSpeak for lawyers. That would teach them things like:

• Why the legal system is not prepared to sue thousands of people for minor cases of copyright infringement.
• No, you can't turn off Gnutella.
• No, you can't turn off the Internet just because Gnutella is on there.
• The record industry does not deserve phat l3wt5 simply because it has strongarmed us into giving it to them them in the past.

Code!=Law

[istartedi]

I enjoyed the article, but I dislike the fact that this tends to enforce the idea that code==law.

Code isn't law. Protocols are like law. Code that follows (or breaks) the protocols is not law, but more like agents under the law. Saying that code==law is like saying that drivers are the motor vehicle code.

Now, certainly it should be illegal to misrepresent code as being compliant to a protocol when it isn't (e.g., MSFT Kerberos). However, the code itself shouldn't be illegal--only the misrepresentation.

The distinction is important, because certain Free Software zealots are trying to use the code==law argument to convince people that software should be Public (they like to say Free when what they really mean is Public, like the Public School System), and perhaps even that private software should be outlawed.

Law and geeks

[Veteran]

By far - the most important thing for geeks to know about the law is: that the law is not something that geeks understand; the law is something that geeks think they understand.

What I mean by that is this: if technical people agree on a set of rules or protocols - that is the way things are - virtually without exception. If a program fails to abide by a protocol - it generally won't work.

The law looks similar and so we think we understand what is going on; we are wrong.

The law is nothing of the kind; the law is quite literally what ever a clever lawyer can talk a judge or jury into believing at that given moment. As such it has a malleable quality quite unacceptable to anyone who has the ability to think honestly.

Imagine the chaos that would rule in the technical world if clueless pointy hair bosses controlled - from minute to minute - based purely on whim - what protocols meant. That is an accurate description of the situation in the legal world.

The law is a system constructed by weasel brains for the benefit of weasel brains and nothing else. Of course the weasel brains realize that if the thinkers ever catch on to what is happening to them - that the game is over. Because of that the weasels go to great lengths to insure that no one who is honest and intelligent ever looks too closely and critically at the basic design and structure of the law. The law is designed so that if the technically sharp study it that they will be so surrounded by trees that they will never notice the shape of the forrest.

If this causes you realize that the law is, in fact,nothing but a gigantic fraud of the first magnitude - then you have begun to understand what is going on in the world.

The law - a real time operating system for life critical functions - consisting of billions of lines of code - not one line of which has ever been tested to see if it works.

Re:Reduce the legal system, and lawyers' arrogance

[odin53]

rules are more likely to be read, understood, remembered, followed, and enforced, and at a lower cost.

Right... because we could operate our society only on the Ten Commandments, no? You're right in some utopian kind of way, but the reason that our legal system (not to mention pretty much ANY legal system in the world) is so complex is because we CAN'T operate our society only on the Ten Commandments. Imagine the "injustice!", the "unfairness!" of a society like that. Humans being naturally sympathetic, we would almost immediately write exceptions to the rules ("Thou shalt not kill... unless in self defense"), and subrules to the main ones ("Thou shalt not steal... But if the value if that which has been stolen is less than $50, thou is guilty of a misdemeanor; otherwise, a felony"). And don't get me started on the difficulty of an entire society deciding on a set of SIMPLE rules. This is the way a complex society MUST form its legal system, lest we live in a tyrannical, fascist world.

NOLO Press needs to be mentioned here.

[kriegsman]

NOLO Press ("Please Don't Feed The Lawyers") needs to be mentioned here. Not only to they publish some really great legal books for non-lawyes, but they also have several "Plain English Law Centers", including a legal encyclopedia, dictionary, FAQ, and so on.

I'm not affiliated with NOLO, except for the fact that I'm a very satisfied customer. I've started and run a couple of small technology businesses, and dealt with a fair amount of IP (both patent and trademark) and contract law issues, and NOLO books are great for educating yourself about what the real legal issues are, and when you really need to get an attorney involved.

-Mark
(IANAL, but my wife is -- and she approves of NOLO :)