Re:Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential star...
by terrib1e on Saturday December 10, 2016 @12:01PM
(#13146543)
I agree with eliminating the need for lawyers for most things, but the biggest problem about it is that in small cities/towns (maybe big ones too, I just have no experience in that domain) judges and lawyers are "buddies". People with the exact same charges can get radically different sentences depending on if they have a paid lawyer vs no lawyer or a public defender. There's a public defender in my town who also has his own private firm, and it's amazing how differently the judge and DA respond to whether or not you hired him or the town did. If all of that isn't bad enough, you can see the judge, DA , and lawyers all making backroom deals and exchanging favors. And they do it fairly blatantly in my town. I've rarely seen an objective case and it's a shame because law is perceived as a "sacred" domain where objectivity rules.
Re:Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential star...
by verbify on Friday December 09, 2016 @08:50PM
(#13143529)
So you don't agree that 'the person who represents themself has an idiot for a client'?
Re:Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential star...
by nihonde on Friday December 09, 2016 @10:29PM
(#13143861)
If you're going to court, bring a lawyer. Courts are the domain of arcane procedures and common sense has no place there. My comments above refer to transactions, compliance, etc.
Re:Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential star...
by mvc on Friday December 09, 2016 @09:41PM
(#13143692)
Probably smart to bring one to court with you but maybe not required for drawing up a standard will where the few assets you own should just go to your next of kin
Re:Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential star...
by DINKDINK on Saturday December 10, 2016 @12:32AM
(#13144219)
Lawyers write human readable code that's compiled and run by a judge or interfacing APIs (institutions such as financial ones)
Your advice is akin to saying "hey you inexperienced coder, write some production ready code but don't test it and when the only time it needs to run, give it a try. Hope you don't screw it up! When there's another coder in the room who can claim 'oh no he meant to set my financial variable 100X not 10x' and can convince the compiler to agree with them"
Re:Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential star...
by nihonde on Saturday December 10, 2016 @03:34AM
(#13144731)
This analogy falls apart pretty quickly. You can't compile legal work product and no one is accountable if it doesn't run, unless you're at the point where malpractice comes into play. Malpractice is really, really hard to prove, though.
Re:Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential star...
by zodiac on Saturday December 10, 2016 @07:33AM
(#13145380)
But most judges are making subjective decisions and not just "running code". The US constitution is law; can you compile it into code such that a computer could tell you whether a particular piece of legislation was unconstitutional? If you could, why hasn't such a computer replaced most of the US Supreme Court?
The only "legal tech" that can succeed (in my opinion) is the kind that eliminates the need for lawyers, but then you're up against a different problem: people who think lawyers are magical wizards who can invoke spells to keep lawsuits and regulators at bay. It's really hard to convince many people that they don't need a lawyer, even though lawyers and law firms are almost never accountable for the advice they give.