LegalEagle1798

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Too many lawyers

I've removed a section of the lawyer article with this title. I am afraid that it is entirely POV and appears to be a personally researched article arguing against the legal profession (though quite why escapes me). It is also quite US-centric. Though it quotes at least one non-US source and of course non-US statistics; many of its assumptions are quite US POV. In many jurisdictions lawyers don't have the same capacity to control the quantity of litigation as they might do in the US (to pick an example). In England and Wales, litigation conducted with lawyers is generally less confrontational and more likely to settle out of court than litigation conducted without lawyers. That might not be the US experience, but many rules differ in the US, for example as to the recoverability of costs. In recent years England and Wales has seen a steady reduction in the number of cases that go to trial as a result of initiatives by members of the legal profession and the judiciary -- in my view a good thing. So your experience may not be uniform. Francis Davey 17:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The role of lawyers in society

I initially posted this at one of the IP addresses you were using, but I figured that you probably did not get to see it, since you jumped around after that. As an attorney, I find your views to be as distressing as an attack against my race or religion would be, because you are using the same kind of broad stereotyping to condemn everyone in the group to which I belong based on the actions of a few. It's true, there are some lawyers who make a fortune off of class action lawsuits where the injured parties get token repayments - but those suits are extremely rare, and the lawyers who win them are rarer still. The vast majority of lawyers in the U.S. work ridiculous hours to make no more pay than folks in other specialized professions. The impression that you get from the media is an illusion.

We live in a society of laws - which is the alternative to wasting all of our resources in violence and death as the resolution of every conflict; yet we also live in a society that prizes individual freedom. That's why we have lawyers, and why the U.S. has so much litigation. It is a hallmark of a free and civilized people that all have the ability to seek compensation for trespasses against them, and that this ability is channeled through non-violent means which provide final resolution for disputes. The very scale of a system that handles virtually all of society's conflicts makes it so complex that the average person finds it baffling, and fails to appreciate that every aspect of the system has developed to counter a perceived injustice, and the entirety is constantly under review by its participants, who wish to make it more efficient and accessible. This is lost on those outside the legal system, who are told by the politicians that the legal system is to blame for their individual problems - but the alternative to the legal system we have is either complete government domination of our actions, or a return to barbarism.

I'd be glad to talk more with you about it, but you have to be willing to shed your misconceptions and open your mind to the facts. BD2412 T 01:58, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Comparing criticism of lawyers to an attack on race is a logical fallacy. I have read several of your contributions to Wikipedia and you have been very sloppy with your logic. I never made any statement suggesting that we do not need a legal system, but just because we need a legal system does not mean we need a bad legal system.

I am not sure why you are having such problems with logical reasoning in your arguments. I know that the LSAT tests for logical reasoning skills. So either you just squeaked by on the LSAT, and somehow got through law school and the bar without being further tested on your logical reasoning skills. Or what is even more worrisome, you did well on the LSAT and your further law school training dulled your logical reasoning skills. In your case it is difficult to tell because you have some rhetorical skill. It may be that you have just not been trained properly.

I made the statement in the lawyer discussion section that if we were more selective in giving the lawyers the right to practice in the court room, the quality of the lawyers allowed to practice in the court room would be improved. This is obvious.

Although you did not bother to respond to my major premise, which pretty much is not disputable, you did make a reasonable argument for the status quo. Of course, the exact same argument could be made for any other graduate degree, but the requirements for practicing in the court room should be much stricter than for just any other graduate degree.

But what leads me to write this are the responses by gator and coolceaser. Do you really think these two should be lawyers and allowed to practice in the court room? Especially CoolCeaser? How do you justify this person being a lawyer especially in view to his response to my post in this section?LegalEagle1798 02:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I should have clarified in my initial response that I was aware that Bar exam scores have been raised because, having recently taken the Bar, I took a Bar prep course in which this fact was discussed extensively. Other than that slip on my part, can you point out which statements of mine lead you to question my logical reasoning skills? I frankly find it odd to have my reasoning attacked by someone whose major argument against lawyers appears to be the politically-motivated opinion of George W. Bush, and who has been unable to demonstrate knowledge of the basic facts which undergird claimed impressions of the legal system. BD2412 T 05:41, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll grant that my statement regarding Bush was poorly written, although it is an important point. I would like to rewrite it, but I am not sure of the rules there.

In the section on criminal law, you were showing some serious problems with logic, and your statement comparing attacking lawyers to attacking race is fallacious. In the criminal law section, I am certain your logic was fallacious because I have read expert commentary on this subject and you did not come close to disproving anything. I was making very well established points, these arguments were not my creations. Also your condescending attitude toward me stinks. I see lawyers do this all the time in response to criticism. Instead of defending their positions, they claim that the non lawyer is an ignoramus. Please stop that crap.

"When you have no basis for argument, abuse the plaintiff." Marcus Tullius Cicero

But look at coolceasers response to me in the lawyer talk. He called me an idiot. Do you really think he should be a lawyer? LegalEagle1798 21:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, lawyers are human beings. However, they are human beings who have achieved a relative position of power - in no small part because of their intellect, diligence, or personal drive - and any time a group of people are in such a position they present a magnified version of the angels and demons of our human nature. Humans live in a society where, fed by our primal survival instinct towards hoarding, we reward greed by giving respect and approval for those who accumulate material wealth. Is it any wonder that some lawyers - not all, but enough to make a lasting impression - think highly of themselves when their efforts pay off?

I say that attacking lawyers is like attacking race or religion because it attempts to judge an enormous and diverse community based on stereotypes derived from the excesses of a few (e.g. F. Lee Bailey, Jack Abramoff), or on widely believed myths about the work that lawyers do (e.g. the idea that lawsuits drive up production costs, although there can be no lawsuit until there has been an actual injury caused by someone's decision to do things less safely than a reasonable person would).

With respect to my portraying you as "an ignoramus", I asked you at Talk:Criminal law what proportion of criminal defendants are defended by the state, and you replied "There are exactly zero defendants defended by the state." That is not only an incorrect statement, but one so woefully off the mark that it calls into question any other claim you make on the topic. It would be as if I, knowing nothing about car engines, were to go to the article on that topic and declare that there is no such thing as a four-cylinder angine. Having made such a statement, any other arguments I raised about the construction of engines would rightfully be suspect.

That being said, I strongly encourage you to go to law school. Cheers! BD2412 T 00:47, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

In criminal cases in the United states it is people vs. the individual throughout the whole process, unlike in the inquisitorial system. Please name the one criminal case where the state represented the individual in the USA?LegalEagle1798 01:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• State of Florida v. Zappe. Before I went to law school, I was a juror in this case, which was defended by a public defender. The defendant, accused of assault and resisting arrest, was acquitted. There's one for you - why did you think it would be difficult to name one? Because those rare high-profile cases involve celebs who hire private lawyers? BD2412 T 02:37, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
• Actually, I have some better examples for you - Clarence Earl Gideon and Ernesto Miranda. BD2412 T 03:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I just came across this discussion after reverting yet another one of LegalEagle1798's uninformed additions to the Lawyer article (which will be a moot point when I complete my pending rewrite of the article).

Furthermore, I stand by my assertions. A person who repeatedly makes sweeping generalizations and blatantly ignorant and incorrect statements without bothering to check them against any documented evidence in advance is an idiot.

Again, I strongly recommend that LegalEagle1798 read Richard Abel's excellent books on the American legal profession. Even if he or she should happen to live in some dirt-poor dump town in the middle of nowhere without a public library, Professor Abel's books are always available through online bookstores like Amazon.com. Furthermore, numerous articles on lawyers are available through online databases like ProQuest and LexisNexis. See Wikipedia:How to write a great article.--Coolcaesar 21:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I think I understood what you meant in the verifiability talk page.

See my reply here. I hope that you are not discouraged with the kind of personal attacks that I see on your person just above. This is not acceptable in Wikipedia. -Lumière 14:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I just read your last edit in the Lawyers article. I felt that it contained an interesting analysis. I would not be surprised that it can be properly sourced, but it will require some research. The one who said that your edit was vandalism was just POV. He should not have removed it, but instead only request that you provide the sources. Certainly accusing you of vandalism was a personal attack against you that is against Wikipedia policy. -Lumière 15:07, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

templates substituted by a bot as per Wikipedia:Template substitution Pegasusbot 06:15, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

You are again acting in violation of Wikipedia policy

Please stop. If you continue to vandalize pages, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. The Lawyer article as I have revised it already contains an extensive section on criticism of lawyers with citations to numerous sources. There is no need for a disorganized random compilation of quotations in the article when there are already several good books about bad lawyers available in English-speaking libraries throughout the world (which I have cited in the article). This is Wikipedia, not Quotationpedia.

If you cannot understand the difference between the random listing of quotations and the intelligent linking of quotations with a coherent discussion, you will be deemed to be a vandal acting in bad faith. You will be permanently blocked and all your edits will be reverted on sight, like the notorious Willy on Wheels.

Furthermore, Google results are notoriously unreliable due to constant vandalism of the Google PageRank system by link farms and various hackers. They do not constitute reliable evidence.

As for your edit summaries, they are grossly inaccurate. You have not engaged in a good faith debate at all over the last five months to explain how your suggested content is in compliance with Wikipedia policy. You have not debated AT ALL. Therefore there is no consensus to keep, in which case the preexisting consensus stands, which is to keep your garbage out of the article.

I suspect you are too lazy, poor, disabled, immature or dumb to research your edits at a proper library and submit intelligently written, properly cited edits to Wikipedia, as I have repeatedly and kindly recommended. TOO BAD. If you have a legitimate excuse for your behavior, I am open to hearing it. But at this point, I seriously doubt you have one. As far as I'm concerned, you're probably just some punk with a grudge against lawyers (and anyone else more successful than you). --Coolcaesar 04:05, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Coolcaeser, I still think this fellow can be brought around to reality - people become lawyers because they are smart enough to do so, and society generally welcomes the influence that lawyers have. BD2412 T 16:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)