First, you're assuming the judge will have the two devices at hand all the time. Maybe back in his chambers, weeks after he held the devices, he's looking at the piece of paper.
Oh, stop whining you little baby, I was confronting the odious, snarky reaction of "waah I don't like these people so I'm going to kill them." It wasn't a metaphor about killing "the profession" and you know it.
The number of lawyers on the market has no effect on the hourly rates of those practicing because the new graduates don't compete with the older ones, and unless they are one of the tiny minority able to get into a law firm partner track they never will. If it did we would already noticed a big drop in hourly rates because of the huge increase in law graduates over the past 10 years. Hasn't happened.
You don't really understand the meaning of the word. "Lawyer" has a legal meaning; licensed to practice law. That's pretty much it. A guy who has been cleaning stables for 50 years but maintained his license is a lawyer. A guy who researches and writes for a law firm is not if he failed the bar.
"But I don't understand why you should be involved so much in society's business and paid SO MUCH more than people who also play critical roles in society, such as garbage men."
Lawyers actually make, on average, about what most people with similar education levels make (and less than some) (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos053.htm#earnings). Even these numbers are inflated right now, standard starting salary for someone just out of law school (or after 7 years of higher education) is about 50k, though a lot of places it starts even lower, with 35k being standard for small firms that handle minor issues. I personally would have no problem lowering the amount many lawyers make; partners at large law firms are terribly overpaid, as are Federal government lawyers, but the average lawyer makes a middle-class living. But then other highly paid professional groups are also unfairly paid more than those garbage men -- doctors, software engineers, MBAs, etc.
"It's gotten completely out of hand, to the point that more and more of our best and brightest people are going into law "for the money", and we're going to have more lawyers arguing over what should be done, what was done, and who should be compensated than people actually doing and creating things to improve society"
Agreed. But the problem is if you are very good at the things that make a good lawyer -- communication skills, analytical reasoning, etc. -- there aren't really that many career paths open to you. Used to be that if you graduated with a liberal arts education you could start your way up the corporate ladder and end up an executive; nowadays corporations want to know what you can do NOW, and being able to knowledgeably discuss history or politics or literature is not one of those things. And as a lawyer I am continuously surprised how often people insist on trying to get us involved in things that don't need a lawyer. And you'd probably be surprised how often a lawyer will plead with their client not to sue over something because it's just not worth it.
There are many really obnoxious lawyers--I have to deal with them. Law school frequently attracts borderline sociopaths. My problem with the mentality of the average slashdotter is they criticize the wrong things. Law isn't some secretive guild where we all meet to discuss how to destroy society. There is a huge backlash in the legal field against the ABA right now because they have adopted policies that are flooding the market with too many lawyers. There are plenty of things to criticize about the legal field, but the average slashdotter comes off as a mouth-breathing yokel, the uneducated dirt farmer with a shotgun in front of his shack threatening to shoot the guy from the bank trying to repossess his farm, on this issue.
Newp, I don't have to tell you a damned thing. I'm a lawyer because I got a degree and took a qualifying exam. You have no idea what I'm doing with my life; I could be tending lepers in the South Sea, bartending, working on a commercial fishing boat, etc. "Lawyer" just means I have a license.
Scientific equipment doesn't mean you're doing science. If I used a scanning electron microscope to find angels dancing on the head of a pin that doesn't mean I'm conducting science.
I'm a lawyer; are you going to shoot me? If so, are you going to do it to my face or are you going to shoot me in the back? Will you allow me to arm myself first, or will you eliminate your risk by making sure I'm unarmed? If I wrestle the gun away from you, do you think I am justified in shooting you with it? I'm really curious about your philosophy.
Let me guess, in real life you're a pasty, scrawny little guy who crosses the street when he sees a bunch of guys walking towards him. But you always wanted to be tough and you've found on the internet you can pretend to be. The only problem is nobody believes you're anything other than a wimp.
"Damn right. Edison was a greed-headed businessman and a giant asshole. Tesla was the brains behind the operation. Sad that most of us grew up being taught the whitewashed fictional history of Edison."
Edison was those things plus a brilliant inventor. He took credit for some of Tesla's work but Tesla wasn't around, for example, for the invention of the phonograph.
This is a perfect example of how intellectual property is morally bankrupt and lawyers are terrible people and how IP law holds back true innovation and... oh wait, because the holder of the copyright released it under a license we like, then let's completely reverse our supposedly deeply held beliefs: nothing is wrong with intellectual property, the infringing party should be sued to smithereens, etc. etc.
Loislaw and Fastcase are competing on the bottom end. Bloomberg has some new competitor, too. The value of Westlaw and Lexis aren't in the cases alone, a big part of their value are the keycites/Shepharding. That is an incredibly labor-intensive process to come up with those.
It tends to be clunky and annoying to use, actually, though it's getting better. The problem is the software frequently has to work with large datasets; millions of documents, with a great deal of data to be worked with in each document. It's like Oracle; I remember hearing way back when I worked in IT that in those days if you needed a really huge database you were pretty much stuck with Oracle, despite the fact that it was hard to administer, the company would blatantly try to rip you off in their cost estimates, it was complicated and clunky, etc. The current large-scale e-discovery programs are the same way now.
Slashdot Mirror
First, you're assuming the judge will have the two devices at hand all the time. Maybe back in his chambers, weeks after he held the devices, he's looking at the piece of paper.
Oh, stop whining you little baby, I was confronting the odious, snarky reaction of "waah I don't like these people so I'm going to kill them." It wasn't a metaphor about killing "the profession" and you know it.
So the .357 magnum is a metaphor for an H&K HK416 semi-automatic rifle?
Post under your slashdot nickname, coward.
The number of lawyers on the market has no effect on the hourly rates of those practicing because the new graduates don't compete with the older ones, and unless they are one of the tiny minority able to get into a law firm partner track they never will. If it did we would already noticed a big drop in hourly rates because of the huge increase in law graduates over the past 10 years. Hasn't happened.
Trust me, if you found angels dancing on the head of a pin your methodology wasn't sound.
Yes, those murder and manslaughter laws are completely unreasonable.
You don't really understand the meaning of the word. "Lawyer" has a legal meaning; licensed to practice law. That's pretty much it. A guy who has been cleaning stables for 50 years but maintained his license is a lawyer. A guy who researches and writes for a law firm is not if he failed the bar.
"But I don't understand why you should be involved so much in society's business and paid SO MUCH more than people who also play critical roles in society, such as garbage men."
Lawyers actually make, on average, about what most people with similar education levels make (and less than some) (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos053.htm#earnings). Even these numbers are inflated right now, standard starting salary for someone just out of law school (or after 7 years of higher education) is about 50k, though a lot of places it starts even lower, with 35k being standard for small firms that handle minor issues. I personally would have no problem lowering the amount many lawyers make; partners at large law firms are terribly overpaid, as are Federal government lawyers, but the average lawyer makes a middle-class living. But then other highly paid professional groups are also unfairly paid more than those garbage men -- doctors, software engineers, MBAs, etc.
"It's gotten completely out of hand, to the point that more and more of our best and brightest people are going into law "for the money", and we're going to have more lawyers arguing over what should be done, what was done, and who should be compensated than people actually doing and creating things to improve society"
Agreed. But the problem is if you are very good at the things that make a good lawyer -- communication skills, analytical reasoning, etc. -- there aren't really that many career paths open to you. Used to be that if you graduated with a liberal arts education you could start your way up the corporate ladder and end up an executive; nowadays corporations want to know what you can do NOW, and being able to knowledgeably discuss history or politics or literature is not one of those things. And as a lawyer I am continuously surprised how often people insist on trying to get us involved in things that don't need a lawyer. And you'd probably be surprised how often a lawyer will plead with their client not to sue over something because it's just not worth it.
There are many really obnoxious lawyers--I have to deal with them. Law school frequently attracts borderline sociopaths. My problem with the mentality of the average slashdotter is they criticize the wrong things. Law isn't some secretive guild where we all meet to discuss how to destroy society. There is a huge backlash in the legal field against the ABA right now because they have adopted policies that are flooding the market with too many lawyers. There are plenty of things to criticize about the legal field, but the average slashdotter comes off as a mouth-breathing yokel, the uneducated dirt farmer with a shotgun in front of his shack threatening to shoot the guy from the bank trying to repossess his farm, on this issue.
"It's not personal. If life were a game of Nethack, I would use my scroll of genocide on lawyers."
You would also kill yourself if you did that. It's like genociding a nurse.
Newp, I don't have to tell you a damned thing. I'm a lawyer because I got a degree and took a qualifying exam. You have no idea what I'm doing with my life; I could be tending lepers in the South Sea, bartending, working on a commercial fishing boat, etc. "Lawyer" just means I have a license.
Scientific equipment doesn't mean you're doing science. If I used a scanning electron microscope to find angels dancing on the head of a pin that doesn't mean I'm conducting science.
So you're only going to figuratively shoot me with a .357 magnum? What is the .357 magnum a metaphor for?
I'm a lawyer; are you going to shoot me? If so, are you going to do it to my face or are you going to shoot me in the back? Will you allow me to arm myself first, or will you eliminate your risk by making sure I'm unarmed? If I wrestle the gun away from you, do you think I am justified in shooting you with it? I'm really curious about your philosophy.
Let me guess, in real life you're a pasty, scrawny little guy who crosses the street when he sees a bunch of guys walking towards him. But you always wanted to be tough and you've found on the internet you can pretend to be. The only problem is nobody believes you're anything other than a wimp.
Ahh you internet tough guys are sooo hardcore.
Proof is just as applicable in civil matters as criminal ones. The standard of proof needed to make your case is just a little lessened.
Wow, you are a terrible human being. And big money LOVES loser pays; they've been pushing it for years.
How does the "MAFIAA" forcibly deprive you of your money? This is not a rhetorical question.
"Damn right. Edison was a greed-headed businessman and a giant asshole. Tesla was the brains behind the operation. Sad that most of us grew up being taught the whitewashed fictional history of Edison."
Edison was those things plus a brilliant inventor. He took credit for some of Tesla's work but Tesla wasn't around, for example, for the invention of the phonograph.
Apple's not a person, you know. Its feelings weren't hurt by my post.
This is a perfect example of how intellectual property is morally bankrupt and lawyers are terrible people and how IP law holds back true innovation and ... oh wait, because the holder of the copyright released it under a license we like, then let's completely reverse our supposedly deeply held beliefs: nothing is wrong with intellectual property, the infringing party should be sued to smithereens, etc. etc.
If Jobs' oil corp invented the Mac, the iPhone, the iPad, or the NeXT, Pixar, or any of the other revolutionary innovations Jobs has led,
Apple "invented" the desktop computer, the smartphone, the tablet computer, and the workstation?
Loislaw and Fastcase are competing on the bottom end. Bloomberg has some new competitor, too. The value of Westlaw and Lexis aren't in the cases alone, a big part of their value are the keycites/Shepharding. That is an incredibly labor-intensive process to come up with those.
It tends to be clunky and annoying to use, actually, though it's getting better. The problem is the software frequently has to work with large datasets; millions of documents, with a great deal of data to be worked with in each document. It's like Oracle; I remember hearing way back when I worked in IT that in those days if you needed a really huge database you were pretty much stuck with Oracle, despite the fact that it was hard to administer, the company would blatantly try to rip you off in their cost estimates, it was complicated and clunky, etc. The current large-scale e-discovery programs are the same way now.
Many lawyers would absolutely love to move away from billable hours; they are soul destroying. They are, however, fairly profitable for the partners.