Talk:Lawyer

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Date of review: 2007-03-20
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Contents

[edit] Archives

This talk page had become unhandily large, so I archived it all, without editting or favoring any part. If something has been archived in error, feel free to bring it back. rewinn 02:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Topics

This is in reply to Rewinn's comment as of December 9, which I just saw because I spent most of last week and this week in depositions. I disagree with the proposed dramatic revision because (1) that would be the third major version in three years, when the second version is not even complete; (2) the current version has achieved incredible stability compared to the last version, which was heavily modified on a daily basis and was rapidly heading in the direction of entropy when I introduced my dramatic rewrite of it; and (3) I am not sure Wikipedia needs a detailed treatise for laypersons on the various branches of lawyering. Most Wikipedia visitors are looking for a light overview, not a dissertation! And I thought providing in-depth detail on law in plain English for laypersons was the job of Nolo Press and its equivalents in other countries (where such equivalents exist).

Also, Rewinn, if you read more carefully that particular paragraph you were criticizing, you would realize that it already mentions the exception for public defenders. With regard to the law of the lawyer-client relationship, I don't think this article (which is treating the topic of what lawyers do at a very high level) needs to get into the nitty-gritty details of American professional responsibility law. I just reviewed my own notes from law school on the subject to refresh my memory. Yes, there are weird cases we all had to read in Professional Responsibility like DeVaux v. American Home Assurance Company, Togstad v. Vesely, Otto, Miller & Keefe, and Lucas v. Hamm, but those cases are outliers. Most states are not as extreme as Minnesota was in Togstad! The vast majority of lawyer-client relationships in the world begin with a conversation between lawyer and client.

As for the other part of what I think you are getting at, I know there are problems in some parts of the United States with plaintiffs' firms that have so heavily automated the lawyer-client relationship that very often the plaintiff's deposition is the client's first contact with a real lawyer (as opposed to paralegals or secretaries), but you need to realize that the U.S. is the outlier on that issue because we allow contingent fees, class actions, and generous discovery. In the vast majority of countries, firms are much smaller, contingent fees are banned or heavily regulated, class actions are very difficult to file, and discovery is not as easy. And many of the remedies achieved by formal litigation in the U.S. are provided by administrative mechanisms elsewhere (for example, New Zealand has a no-fault injury compensation scheme and many Scandinavian countries have ombudspersons). So it is primarily in the U.S. where huge plaintiffs' firms aggressively utilize paralegals and an avalanche of advertisements to develop an army of plaintiffs who play the "litigation lottery." This is a difficult point which takes at least a year of law school to fully understand (thus the frequent but unjustified complaint from conservative laypersons that America is "overlawyering" itself to death). This complex quirk of the U.S. lawyer-client relationship, in my opinion, is simply inappropriate for a high-level general overview of what is a lawyer.--Coolcaesar 08:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

One topics at a time please. The above lengthy comment appears to cover at least 3 topics. If a discussion is desired, it should be put into as many topics. rewinn 22:45, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Update on history research

Well, I finally found a good article which I added a citation to, concerning the restart of the legal profession in the 13th century. Now I just need a good citation to show how the non-canon lawyers followed the example of the professionalizing canon lawyers to form their own profession. Then this article will be all done---for a while, until someone complains that it should trace the story of lawyering up to the present (which is going to be really messy since the history of each European country's legal services industry is so complex). But one problem at a time. --Coolcaesar 04:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another weird Wikipedia bug, this is very strange

Some person who is clearly an English-as-a-Second-Language writer just made an badly drafted edit today to the Education section, but for some reason my corretions to the article are simply not being recognized by the server when I try to submit them. It just hangs and never responds with the updated article as usual. There must be something wrong with MediaWiki; I can edit other articles but not the Lawyer article itself. I've seen a similar bug before on several occasions when working on this article and other long articles over WiFi connections (one of which I am using right now). Perhaps it has something to do with the network addressing setup on WiFi routers. I don't have this problem when editing Wikipedia over a direct POP link or landline Ethernet/DSL to the local telco, which is AT&T (formerly SBC). Anyway, can someone copyedit the Education section? Thanks.--Coolcaesar 08:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)??

Funny. Just tried again and it's still not working. I can make short edits to other Wikipedia articles and talk pages (including this one), but not the article! This is really so weird. --Coolcaesar 20:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Weird. I can blank most of it but now I can't bring it back. Can someone else just revert this to my last edit on January 7? Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Coolcaesar (talk • contribs) 00:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC).
Found the workaround. If I go through the secure server at secure.wikimedia.org I can submit the entire article properly. So the problem, as I suspected, must be on my end, not Wikimedia's end. Anyway I've fixed the article. --Coolcaesar 01:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Splitting out history

At 21:05, 24 January 2007, 71.236.216.215 deleted the History section. While this would have been a good edit had it been to split the section into its own wikipedia page (given that this article exceed 50k) I didn't see such a page being referenced in the edit, and so reverted. I suggest discussing before doing that again. As above (in archive) this topic is sufficiently broad as to require outline format, especially since there is much information specific as to nation and as to era. rewinn 07:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the history section will have to be split into a separate article but not until I get around to finishing it (that is, to bringing it up to the early 20th century). At that time I will split it off. However, keep in mind that the main reason this article is 50k is because I have loaded it to the gills with citations. This is not like other articles that have 50k of body text straight through (United States comes to mind). The citations are necessary because the train wreck that preceded my drastic revision was a largely unsourced, disorganized pigpen of innuendo from disgruntled litigants. Also, as I have already noted many times, I have taken great pains to make this article sensitive to a worldwide view by citing academic articles about the legal professions in Norway, Japan, Germany, France, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, Venezuela, and many other countries.

--Coolcaesar 07:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest splitting the history section immediately would encourage contributions to both articles by more editors. No reason to leave all the work to one dedictated editor. rewinn 06:40, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The terminology issue, revisited

Rewinn made some edits to the terminology section recently. While I largely agree that Rewinn's edits have clarified what was a confusing section, I still disagree regarding Rewinn's view that the term "lawyer" encompasses "judges" in American English, because as I understand it, American lawyers practice law and an American judge cannot practice law while on the bench. For example, it is a high misdemeanor for a federal judge to practice law. 28 U.S.C. § 454. Similarly, Canon 4G of the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct (which has been adopted in practically all states) states that "a judge shall not practice law." Since Black's Law Dictionary defines a lawyer as "one who is licensed to practice law," I simply cannot see how Rewinn can reconcile that definition with the rule that a judge cannot practice law. --Coolcaesar 07:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Current version fruitfully avoids the above issue altogether: In the United States of America, the term generally refers to attorneys who may or may not practice law. While legally "attorney" may be distinguishable from "lawyer", in practical terms these are frequently used interchangably ... especially in lawyer jokes. rewinn 06:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh. Now that you point that out (and I am actually between depositions for a while so I have time to think things through for once), I realize you're right. Your definition does gracefully sidestep the issue. My mistake. I'm glad we were able to resolve this. --Coolcaesar 07:27, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another issue I just caught - we do not need to get the U.S. trial lawyer mess into this article

Blawger made this edit [1] on 14 January 2007 which I reverted the next day. Then Rewinn countermanded my revert. I just caught this issue.

There are several problems with mentioning the trial lawyer mess. First: Trial lawyer is a redirect to this page and I certainly don't have the time to research and draft an article on that complex topic when my hands are full with the mess in this article. Second: The more correct term would be litigator. It is true that some U.S. attorneys specialize in litigation and will rarely if ever negotiate a complex business transaction in a representative capacity (I suppose I fall into this category) while others specialize in transactional law and haven't seen a judge since they were sworn in as members of the bar. Third: The term "trial lawyer" in American English carries a hairball of connotations that are inappropriate for an article trying to take a worldwide view. Depending upon the context, the term "trial lawyer" can refer to any litigator, or to litigators who specialize in fighting cases all the way from the complaint through the end of trial, or who specialize in trying cases which less experienced attorneys have already litigated up to the brink of trial. Or it can refer to plaintiffs' trial lawyers who specialize in playing the lottery by bringing frivolous cases against big corporations in the hope of finding the dumbest jury in the world that will seize the opportunity to screw the rich. This last usage is the meaning of "trial lawyer" found among American ultraconservatives and tort reformers. Fourth: A "trial lawyer" does not have a de jure monopoly on trial practice like barristers. Any properly licensed American attorney can theoretically litigate a case in any federal and state court in their state, although most transactional attorneys would refrain from taking direct responsibility for litigating a case because of the obvious risk that they may commit malpractice due to inexperience.

So if no one refutes these points, I'm going to change the paragraph back to how it looked before Blawger touched it. Again, I just don't think the rhetorical battle in the United States over the meaning of the term "trial lawyer" is relevant to an article trying to take a worldwide view. --Coolcaesar 07:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No one has refuted these points. Anyway, I have just thought of a way to restate the sentence that is more accurate but preserves the link to trial lawyer. --Coolcaesar 07:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA on hold

A very well-written article with plenty of images and inline citations (plus, plus!). There are a few things that need to be fixed before I'll pass it as described below.

  1. I'd recommend that the lead be expanded, consider looking at WP:Lead for examples and instructions.
  2. Add wikilinks or further explain (the section is in parenthesis): bar (Terminology), clerks, scriveners, dichotomy (Responsibilities), appellate courts (Oral argument in the courts), dissertation, credentials, apprenticeships, hobby (Education), corporate executive, government administrator, investment banker, entrepreneur, journalist, India, German, France, magistrates (Common law/civil law), citizenship, unconstitutional (Mandatory licensing and membership in professional organizations), Communist (Who regulates lawyers), self-help books & anecdotes (Criticism of lawyers).
  3. Combine the first two sentences in the Oral argument in the courts section into the same paragraph, as single sentences shouldn't stand alone. This happens several more times in the article, make sure to fix them all. If you don't think that the statements correlate with each other than find more information to expand on the statement to develop a new paragraph.
  4. Likewise, a lot of the sections only have a few sentences making up a paragraph. Maybe consider merging some of the subsections together into one and then later make it a subsection when you have more information for expansion.
  5. In the Earning the right to practice law section, I think the italics should be removed from "anyone", as it may be deemed as POV.
  6. "Who regulates lawyers", see if you can come up with a better title for this section.
  7. Add a comma after "United States in the 1840s[117][118]" in the Criticism of lawyers section.
  8. Consider moving the history section up higher in the article.
  9. Move one of the images at the top down into the article, and see if you can add an image of a present-day lawyer "in action" in a court.

Add inline citations for:

  1. In some countries it is common or even required for students to earn another bachelor's degree at the same time.
  2. Depending upon the country, a typical class size could range from five students in a seminar to five hundred in a giant lecture room.
  3. However in the Scandinavian countries the situation for lawyers is similar to that of the common law countries in that they may easily change roles and arenas. (also remove however)
  4. In the English-speaking world, the largest mandatory professional association of lawyers is the State Bar of California, with 200,000 members.
  5. The largest voluntary professional association of lawyers in the English-speaking world is the American Bar Association.

Like I said, a good article, it just need some cleanup before I'll pass it. Please address all of the suggestions and consider crossing them off as you fix them to get a better view of your progress. I will leave this article on hold for seven days and then will fail it if the changes are not made. Let me know when you are done or if you have any questions on my talk page. --Nehrams2020 22:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I hope that the person who actually wrote this thing can get to that.--Rmky87 00:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I have restated and sourced the line about Scandinavia. As for the four other statements I will look out for sources but that might take a while. --Coolcaesar 07:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why this strange passage has to go

User:Rarefly45 has now posted twice the same passage, as follows:

Law is an extremely unusual profession in that it is entirely regulated by the lawyers themselves through their trade association known as the American Bar Association. This has frequently led to a wide amount of discretion in determining what is right and what is wrong, or in other words, what is or is not an offense that is deserving of disbarment. This concept is instilled within the minds of law students from the very first day of their law school career. However, this is highly determinative upon the particular law school that the student has attended. There are after all 193 institutions approved by the American Bar Association, with their ABA Accredited Schools ranging from Harvard Law at the very top all the way to Ohio Northern University at the very very bottom. This is a Law School Listing of all those schools. There has recently been a push to disaccredit Ohio Northern University, otherwise referred to as the Pettit College of Law [http://www.law.onu.edu/ from the list of approved law schools, due to a seldom discussed and little publicized scandal that has been brewing within the closed doors of the Dean's office.

This passage is problematic for several reasons.

First, it fails to take a worldwide view in violation of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. The American Bar Association does not have global jurisdiction over the legal profession and therefore the first sentence is grossly U.S.-centric. Before my extensive rewrite of this article last spring, the article was frequently criticized and tagged by non-U.S. editors with the "fails to take a worldwide view" tag.

Second, it is inadequately sourced. The only sources are links to the ABA Web site, the ABA law school accreditation list, and a law school list from Findlaw. However, there are no sources cited for the separate and distinct assertions about: (1) the regulation of the entire global legal profession by the American Bar Association; (2) the ABA's control leads to a wide amount of discretion about what is right or wrong; (3) the broad range of discretion is instilled into all law school students; (4) the extent of the instilling of this concept is determined by one's law school; (5) Ohio Northern University is the worst school on the ABA list; (6) ONU is about to lose accreditation; or (7) there is a scandal brewing at the school. Each of these assertions should be cited to a reliable source under the Wikipedia:Reliable sources guideline, and the assertions that border on libel (the last two) must be attributed to a reliable source under the Wikipedia:Attribution policy.

Third, it is poorly written, incoherent, and unencyclopedic in violation of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Wikipedia is not a random collection of information nor is it a soapbox for a disgruntled madman (or madwoman) to air his/her views about a particular law school. Frankly, I suspect Rarefly45 is either not a lawyer or is licensed in one of those states where anyone who can sign his name can become a lawyer. In California, a law student who wrote that poorly would probably not be able to pass the bar exam, and a lawyer who submits a passage that bad to a court or their immediate supervisor would be fired.

Fourth, it is factually incorrect. The American Bar Association does not regulate the worldwide legal profession nor does it regulate the American legal profession; the power to enroll and disbar remains in the state bar associations.

Fifth, it was placed of out of context. It was placed into a section about voluntary bar associations (a worldwide phenomenon), yet the passage discusses self-regulation (an issue covered in the passage above) and is extremely specific to the unique situation with education regulation in the U.S. Most other countries maintain strict centralized control over educational institutions and do not delegate licensing to private peer review or professional organizations.

To Rarefly45: I highly recommend reading Wikipedia core policies like Wikipedia:Attribution if you wish to make a lasting contribution to the encyclopedia that will not be reverted on sight. See User:Ericsaindon2 for what happens to users who persistently make edits in violation of core policies (I got fed up with Ericsaindon2's bad edits and filed a successful case with the Arbitration Committee). --Coolcaesar 07:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA failed

I have failed the article for now since it has passed the on hold period. Please address the issues and then renominate once you have completed them, or let me know and I'll look over the article again. Keep improving the article, and with a few dedicated editors, you should be able to bring this up to GA. --Nehrams2020 20:11, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More issues that just arose

It looks like there was an edit war earlier which Famspear tried to resolve with a direct quote from Black's Law Dictionary. Here are two issues that arose which I plan to resolve at some point. First, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, which means the quote should be restructured into an actual sentence. Second, the inline citation needs to be restructured into a footnote. --Coolcaesar 03:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

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