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Lawyers. UGH! I propose that we do away with most of these legal beavers in one fell swoop.
Why have private citizens pay them thousands of dollars per hour, when the courts are capable of summoning thousands of people, on pain of fine or imprisonment to hear the same court cases for a whopping
40 dollars a day plus 50 cents per mile in travel expenses?
Instead of getting twelve people as jurors for each court case, I suggest we obtain 24 per case. The extra twelve will serve as defendors and prosecutors. With six per side, there is a good chance of dilligent work.
The defendant, and the plaintiff will be allowed to interview for prospective lawyers in private, and the public lawyers will then be sworn in, and perform jury selection.
With unskilled laborers working for less than minimum wage, speedy trials can again be ensured. Their lack of training in the letter of the law will ensure that the spirit of the law is more closely upheld, spiralling court costs and fivolous lawsuits will be over before they begin, and as an added bonus, the general public will become more familiar with the laws as they are written, and these laws will eventually be reduced to simple, and understandable terms in order to match the skills of the users.
Sure, lawyers are like cockroaches, and we won't be able to do away with them all. Certainly, all kinds of contract writing and out of court settlment will still go on, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
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And watch the justice system swing to support white christian men all the time, instead of just most of the time? Um. No. |
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Laws, Lawyers and Courts exist to protect the weak from the powerful. Which in a democracy means the minorities from the majority. Which in most of the western world means the everyone else versus the rich white christian man. |
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What's next? Have the Courts system summon people as criminals? |
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//Laws, Lawyers and Courts exist to protect the weak from the powerful.// On which planet would that be? |
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[lawyers are like cockroaches] |
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I know how people come to feel like this, but I know this one fellow, small town lawyer, who takes on all manner of work for people who have no money who got raw deals. |
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I and some coworkers were shafted by an employer that was trying to cover up a systemic problem, and this gentleman helped me to hold them accountable. Amusing to watch your former boss perjure himself and get caught at it. |
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I've been to him for advice a few times since then. He talks with me for hours and refuses to take a dime of my money. He's as creative as a 'baker in his solutions, and one hell of a diplomat. |
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That said, I'm all for innovative legal changes. Frank Herbert had a fictional race and court where the winning attorney in every case had to kill the losing attorney in court with a stone knife - talk about minimizing frivolous lawsuits. |
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//And watch the justice system swing to support white christian men all the time, instead of just most of the time?// |
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I dunno. I think the main reason it swings to support them most of the time now is because they tend to be rich. |
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Did I mention that with this system of random citizens being forced to serve as laywers, it would be nearly impossible to "buy" justice, as often happens today? |
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OK, so small claims might get pretty racist this way (I doubt it, since Latinos are now the majority in many parts of America... but organized crime, and white collar criminals would be unable to hide behind professional lawyers. |
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I don't see how this is an invention. |
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\\With unskilled laborers working for less than minimum wage, speedy trials can again be ensured.\\ I'd agree with everything except that I'd replace the word 'speedy' with 'substandard'. Why would it seem preferable to have witnesses being cross examined by lay-people purely to save a few bucks? |
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\\the general public will become more familiar with the laws as they are written, and these laws will eventually be reduced to simple, and understandable terms in order to match the skills of the users.\\ You seem to misunderstand the lengths that the average person is willing to go to in order to get 'less than minimum wage', and also who it is that drafts laws. |
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Becoming a lawyer takes many years of hard work and training, and the most successful ones are usually very intelligent people. It isn't the type of job that any random person off the street could do any more than an unskilled person could be a car mechanic or a doctor. Big [-] |
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//Did I mention that with this system of random citizens being forced to serve as laywers, it would be nearly impossible to "buy" justice, as often happens today?// |
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That does not follow at all. Your average citizen does not have to maintain a reputation as a lawyer, and does not have to maintain good standing as an officer of the court. |
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Yes, there are corrupt lawyers. Too many of them. There are also corrupt plumbers. |
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And the law is complex for a reason. Just as computer code is complex for a reason. Law says "Do not steal" seems simple. But what if I use your idea to produce a product? Am I stealing? What if I put your logo on my product? Or my logo on yours? What if I build a fence that shades out your rose bushes? What if I do nothing myself, but hire other people to steal stuff? What if I buy stuff from thieves and resell it? What if I make a copy of something you own and use it for myself instead of buying a copy from you? |
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This is why the law is complex. Because people are complex. I would no more want a lay person to be my lawyer than I would want a layperson to be my computer programmer. |
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I dunno. Considering how well microsoft has done up my PC, a lay person might concievably prove preferable. The lay person at least would not design a laptop that asks you to connect to the internet three times when you first fire it up, and then tries to register you online before you can insert any personal preferences... |
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Trust me dude, you do _not_ want me arguing on your behalf in a complicated trial. It may sound weird, but if I'm on trial for something then I really, really, really, really want a defender who has considerable training in the letter of the law. I don't like lawyers either, but in the courthouse you gotta have one. I wish I had more than one [-]. |
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Contentious work makes up only a small portion of a lawyer's work and many of the solicitors I know have never set foot inside a court in a professional capacity. |
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//many of the solicitors I know have never set foot inside a court in a professional capacity.// |
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Hey, me too! Then again, that's not much of a surprise, since many of the courts I know will not allow solicitors to set foot inside them in a professional capacity. |
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Nuerosurgeons seem to want loads of money for the work they do as well - does this mean we should entrust brain surgery operations to randomly-chosen teams of the unemployed? |
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You could probably trust fund management and city money stuff to randomly-chosen teams of the unemployed. Simply set up betting shops where each horse name is mapped to a FTSE equivalent entity. |
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I would entrust randomly picked teams of the unemployed to play at the superbowl... and to sell cars, or drugs, or to read fortunes. I don't think that commanding large sums of money, or having years of educational training is necessarily indicative of the skill level that is actually needed to perform a job. In many cases, it is actually preferable to do a job badly with the right intentions than to do a job expertly with corrupt goals. |
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Examples? how about running a large organization. I hear ENRON was run by a lot of professionals. The red cross is run by volunteers. Who would you rather give money to? |
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Oh, so it's a hate-the-rich anti-corporate rant then? |
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Here's the thing. Here in the US, at least, you _can_ have anyone you wish represent you in a case, you can even represent yourself. But there are very compelling reasons why people don't choose to do so. You can have your shiftless, unemployed, uneducated drug-addled brother-in-law represent you in a trumped up, bogus murder case, but would you really want to? |
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Why do you seem to assume that having training in a field will make you more corrupt? |
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Who would bribe an incompetent? |
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//Sure, lawyers are like cockroaches, and we won't be able to do away with them all.// |
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I've met lawyers who were dumbasses and mean spirited, but few of them have anything on you. |
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You should have a lot more education about the criminal justice system before you attempt to fix it. If you don't, people will think that you're yammering on without knowing what the fuck you're talking about. |
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[noexit] You can represent yourself in state or federal criminal court, but if someone represents you, they have to be an attorney. In state court, they have to be an attorney in that state. In federal court, they have to be an attorney admittted to that particular federal district, unless they get special permission from the court. |
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