All lawyers should be given by the state, so capital is less of a factor of who wins in court.
Posted by dylan_1992@reddit | CrazyIdeas | View on Reddit | 113 comments
Everyone should be given a random, public defender.
Companies, and the rich are already paying millions in legal fees. Instead of it going into a private firm, it'll go in as taxes to fund this.
Private firms will still exist, and the best performing ones will be picked and paid by the state.
jols0543@reddit
can we at least be guaranteed assigned one that specializes in the type of law that pertains to our case?
Antoine-12@reddit
I think it’s should be specialization and experience based. So for smaller like traffic cases give a lesser experienced attorney.
SourTD@reddit
I'm still convinced that H3H3 only won against Matt Hoss because they had more money. I would love this system.
1nvisiblepenguin@reddit
This creates a separate problem - if all lawyers are paid for by the state, there is also a powerful incentive for the lawyers to act in the state’s interest, not the defendant’s. Especially in felony cases where the state is bringing criminal charges against an individual, the only thing ensuring that your state-appointed public defender doesn’t roll over when asked is how seriously they take their oath.
Obligatory I am not a lawyer.
Th3_Accountant@reddit
It works in other sectors like audit.
The company that undergoes the audit is also the company that pays for the audit.
Altruistic_Yam1283@reddit
But our current system already has state appointed public defenders that don’t need to act in the state’s interest?
1nvisiblepenguin@reddit
My wife is a lawyer so I actually know how this all works
Altruistic_Yam1283@reddit
what?
dylan_1992@reddit (OP)
That honestly a valid point that went through my mind when writing this, however I still think this is a move in the right direction.
1 way to address this is instead of “random”, both sides pick their lawyer. It’s like today, only the state pays for it. The subtle difference is everyone has access to any lawyer versus what you can afford.
The state also has bigger negotiating power than an individual, so legal fees should ideally go way down.
diplomystique@reddit
What prevents a privately-retained lawyer from doing the same thing? Contingency fees are prohibited in criminal cases, and private criminal defense lawyers require cash up front. They get paid either way. Private criminal defense lawyers are also generally prohibited from advertising that they got so-and-so acquitted (it’s considered misleading, since that’s no guarantee that your case would have the same outcome) so rolling over on a client doesn’t necessarily cost a private lawyer future business.
To be clear neither public defenders nor private attorneys typically betray their clients in this manner. But I don’t think their compensation structure is a major disincentive to doing so.
1nvisiblepenguin@reddit
It matters on a per-firm not per-lawyer basis. If, as OP suggested, the “best performing” private firms will be awarded state contracts to staff their lawyers, then the state is still incentivized to only hire law firms who will do what they want more often. It’s not that the defendant pays up front that matters, it’s that lawyers all across the system are hired and paid by the same entity that they are fighting against in court.
sunniestgirl@reddit
Oh you mean actual real balance and justice? How dare you suggest rich people not get to do whatever they want to us!
Beautiful-Fold-3234@reddit
More complex cases require more experienced lawyers.
New-Number-7810@reddit
In theory, this would make the justice system more meritocratic.
In practice, the wealthy could still hire “legal advisers” to give their state-appointed lawyer an edge in court.
just_looking_aroundd@reddit
Attorney client privilege would not apply. Not sure how that applies now in businesses. But could make it so any fraud or 'mistakes' are not protected by secrecy clauses.
dylan_1992@reddit (OP)
Maybe give enough advisers to everyone.
Nothing’s a perfect solution, but it evens the scales more.
Can the rich still use their resources to get an upper hand? Sure. But they’re already paying an exorbitant amount of taxes already to get their lawyers from the state (and to fund others in the system) and the lawyers they’ll get in court will be from the state.
New-Number-7810@reddit
So everyone has their own dream-team? That would even the scale quite a bit.
dylan_1992@reddit (OP)
Enough to where one’s case is properly represented. Dream team wasn’t what I was going for.
kfish5050@reddit
It would probably be better to have a "case pool" of funds where any money, resources, advisors, or anything else involved with the case be held and distributed equally between the plaintiff and defendant during the trial. If one side can afford a huge lawyer team, they'd have to pay for one for their opposition too.
TrekkiMonstr@reddit
This doesn't change supply and demand. You'd just be bidding up the price of their services, until the point that you're not willing to pay it.
SteelWheel_8609@reddit
Or not. You could just make that illegal.
New-Number-7810@reddit
How would you make that illegal? That would violate freedom of expression, by preventing people from freely expressing true legal information to someone.
duskfinger67@reddit
Freedom of expression is not absolute. I cannot freely express my bank robbery plans to you, as that would make me an accomplice. Freedom of speech or expression does not mean you can participate in criminal activity freely.
The crime would be something like 'Perverting the course of justice through external counsel".
Hell, you see it at the moment, you are not allowed to speak to jurors in major cases, does that violate freedom of expression in your mind?
New-Number-7810@reddit
How would external council be considered perverting justice? You can’t say “because I said so” because that would never hold up in court. It would be difficult to sell the idea that justice is served by public lawyers being in the dark about part of the law.
duskfinger67@reddit
Because that is what is being considered here? The crazy idea is to pass a law that makes it illegal to get outside advice for public defenders.
You claimed that would be unconstitutional, I gave an example of how it could be constitutional.
As to why it could be considered perverting the course of justice, I agree that is a harder sell. However, if we start from the premise that an information asymmetry in court is unjust, aka that someone can gain a significant advantage from paying for better lawyers, then it follows that ensuring everyone has the same level of legal representation would be more fair.
This is also based on the assumption that all public defenders have a good enough knowledge of the law and the case such that there is not issue of misrepresentation.
New-Number-7810@reddit
It’s not just crazy, it’s borderline authoritarian. Why not just get rid of lawyers and juries entirely, and have a judge decide the matter alone?
haby112@reddit
The entire point of having lawyers is to have an advisarial structure of investigation, where each side of the debate on a matter of justice (the case being reviewed) has a zealous advocate. This is expected to give justice the best chance of being discovered. The base requirements are a zealous advocate of the prosecution/petitioner, a zealous advocate of the defense/respondents, and a judge.
These are all accounted for in a system that strictly limits the Judicial system to exactly these components for each case
-Supp0rt-@reddit
They cant get rid of lawyers and juries entirely because under our system of law, a defendant has the RIGHT to a trial by jury. Why do we have that right? Because the law says so.
The person you are arguing with is simply saying that similarly to how we have a right to a jury, we should also have the right to a trial that is fair to both parties regardless of their personal wealth.
Personally, I think it’s a great idea that will likely never happen because the people making the decisions are the ones who would lose the most by passing said law in the first place.
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KingPotus@reddit
“Freedom of expression”? There’s all kinds of limits on lawyers already. Otherwise anyone who’s not a lawyer could also give legal advice and claim it’s part of their First Amendment rights. Yet that’s illegal.
Salty_Map_9085@reddit
Ok don’t let them do that
New-Number-7810@reddit
There’s be no legal way to prevent it without becoming an authoritarian state.
Salty_Map_9085@reddit
Nah there is actually
diff2@reddit
That's basically free tutelage for inexperienced lawyers.
I wonder if there would come to be a point where every lawyer becomes top class because they were able to work with all possible resources due to the wealthy patrons.
dlpfc123@reddit
I feel like it would actually do the opposite. The best lawyers would become legal advisors, because that is where the money is. So the only ones left to be lawyers would be those that are not particularly good at their jobs. And with the lawyers being spoonfed the answers by the legal advisors, they are not likely to get better.
Leviathan_slayer1776@reddit
So how the public defender system currently works
WhipYourDakOut@reddit
No cause that assumes the only factor in being a good lawyer is resources and like everything everyone isn’t created equal
New-Number-7810@reddit
That could likely be the case.
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Graega@reddit
That's because our legal system is shit to begin with. If stare decisis is the basis, I shouldn't need to wipe afford lawyers who can find out what that decision was. The court system should bear that responsibility. The law should not act different because a law team can find a precedent for it to do so... but then revert for the next case unless they can afford it, too.
Aptos283@reddit
Funnily enough, I feel like this would be an interesting task for AI. Not the full lawyer setup, but as a research tool to enable very thorough awareness of legal precedent for everyone involved.
In curious if that’s been of interest. It certainly seems like that would help inexperienced lawyers in that respect.
diplomystique@reddit
In my experience as a prosecutor, and based on conversations with my colleagues, I would generally say that public defenders provide the best representation available in the American criminal justice system on average. There are a few factors to this, but among them are that it’s highly ideological (so very smart lawyers become PDs if they have the appropriate ideology, notwithstanding the poor pay) and they are very well-trained and supervised as part of an established institution that routinely practices in that field. Because they are courthouse fixtures, PDs often have a lot of reputation with judges and DAs, which the smarter PDs husband carefully. As another commenter mentioned, they are overworked and lose a lot but that does not necessarily imply a lack of ability. Oncologists lose a lot too.
Private attorneys may be very good but can really be a mixed bag. Very expensive lawyers have much smaller caseloads and can devote more time to any given case, but they generally don’t get a lot of supervision and don’t get enough reps to get really good at lawyering, either. It’s like medicine: you can spend a lot or a little, but as Michael Jackson showed, paying a lot doesn’t necessarily mean you get better care.
Classic-End6768@reddit
“Oncologists lose a lot too” is a hell of a line 👌
SpecialistJacket9757@reddit
Very well said.
In a similar vein, after 40 years of civil trial defense work, it has been my experience that trial attorneys at the largest [highest hourly rate] firms generally have very little actual jury trial experience simply because because they only handle very high value cases which, as a group, have the lowest percentage that are actually tried to verdict.
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irish_faithful@reddit
If that becomes a law, there will be many lawyers that will file a lawsuit to overturn the law lol
BearablePunz@reddit
i like this. it’s always irked me that people in tv and movies would talk about paying more for a better lawyer, why should the amount of money in your bank account determine the quality of your representation?
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CMDR_Lina_Inv@reddit
Or maybe make the law so simple yet so advance that lawyer no longer needed. Probably too hard to do.
minimanmike1@reddit
And how would you make laws “simpler?”
CMDR_Lina_Inv@reddit
Simple here means written in a way where normal people can understand and does not require any lawyer to read and interpret like some kind of ancient text...
Well, for the question, I don't know, that's why it's hard to do.
Fuck all the lawyers downvoting me like I'm about to take away their job. I always believe a good law system is the one that even normal people can understand and leverage to protect themselves.
SatanTheSanta@reddit
The problem is that if you go simple, people can find loopholes. Every edge case needs to be covered, every word defined, everything explicitly specified.
And yeah, there are already loopholes now, but that doesent mean we should just surrender to them and open them up completely.
CMDR_Lina_Inv@reddit
That's why I said simple but advance. Something that even a kid can understand but no one can find loop holes, like a programming language... And I know full well it's hard and probably beyond human capability right now.
SatanTheSanta@reddit
I mean, you can read laws right now, they arent written in ancient latin. I read laws a couple times a year when I need clarity on something and I am no lawyer.
We cant write laws with no loopholes even now when they are complex, simplifying the language to be read by kids is not gonna make it easier. But for most situations, you can just read the abstract, a summary that covers the basics, that is usually something for a kid to understand. But if you need details, which you usually do if you are reading laws, then you gotta read the specific clauses.
Real_Palpitation9848@reddit
Agreed. Even leaving loopholes aside. Cornerstone concepts in most, if not all, legal systems are clarity and uniformity. Extremely simple laws will often result in uncertainty of what is allowed or prohibited.
Even a law such as “It shall be illegal for a person to kill another person” which seems simple enough is fraught with challenges when applied. What if a surgeon “kills” you in an attempt to save you? What if someone tries to kill you but fails? Should someone who murders in cold blood receive the same punishment as someone who involuntarily and accidentally kills someone? What about self defense or defense of others? I think most people would intuit answers that align with our current laws, but that’s the point without the extra complexity (e.g., by including concepts such as intent, negligence, reasonableness, exceptions) we cannot give clear and uniform answers.
minimanmike1@reddit
It’s not even about taking away jobs, though. The law is complicated because it has to be. I’m sure there’s certain parts that could be slightly simplified but overall they have to make sure very little is up for interpretation so that every situation is treated as fairly and equally as possible, so therefore, complicated laws.
CMDR_Lina_Inv@reddit
I know why it's complicated at this moment. What I hope for is a simple version but still can do the same or even more. You may say it's impossible. I'm gonna say humankind doesn't try hard enough, or developed enough.
minimanmike1@reddit
Well the difference between this situation and flying is that this isn’t about not knowing how to do something, it’s about covering all grounds. It’d be great if laws were simple enough for everyone to understand, but there’s little way to simplify it enough where it is universally understandable, and yet leaves no room for huge loopholes.
Take this for example: A law that says if you run a traffic light you will get a $100 ticket. Seem’s simple right? Well what classifies as a traffic light, you’ll need a definition for that. What classifies as “running” a traffic light? You’ll need another definition for that. Add thousands and thousands of those laws, making sure all of them are propery layed out with in-depth definitions, and none of those thousands conflict with eachother, and you get a confusing legal code.
Serrisen@reddit
Imo, the law is generally pretty simple, and perfectly understandable for high school reading levels
The real problem is the sheer bulk of laws, trial cases, and courtroom regulations you'd need to know to actually make sense of it. And you can't really pare those down without causing problems
Justin_Case619@reddit
Bro you’re on to something but it would be ugly
dylan_1992@reddit (OP)
All changes are ugly but we should do things by how right they are, not by how hard it is.
w3woody@reddit
The argument made in the 1960’s for socialized health care hinged on the idea that doctors and providers of health care were so much smarter than consumers of health care that it was impossible for a free market to properly function. The disparity between what doctors knew and what consumers knew meant you cannot possibly have a consumer-driven health care market. Especially since, when you may need it most, failure properly ‘consume’ health care (get the proper diagnosis and treatment) could be significantly life altering.
Well, it seems to me, given the complexity of the legal code and the degree in which people’s lives are destroyed by civil and criminal actions—the same principles apply to the legal profession.
Meaning if there is anything that really desperately needs to be socialized, because of the imbalances between providers and consumers, and because of the life-altering aspect of failure to properly ‘consume’—it’s the legal profession.
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FlameBoi3000@reddit
Great argument, but it's not like we ended up with socialized healthcare either tho :')
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ursois@reddit
How about a lawyer ranking system of wins to losses weighted by case difficulty, and public defenders and prosecutors must be of equal rank, or the case has grounds for dismissal on appeal? If the state wants to send someone down the river, they'd better dang well provide adequate representation.
dylan_1992@reddit (OP)
Like ELO? That actually sounds cool and fair.
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ehbowen@reddit
"Random," right. Just like the judges who hear these cases for emergency injunctions are 'random.'
I can just see the state giving Hillary Clinton the equivalent of F. Lee. Bailey and Johnnie Cochran...while Luigi gets someone whose law degree was from the mail-order equivalent of Cracker Jacks....
TrekkiMonstr@reddit
This would make it way easier to engage in spurious lawsuits, which we see a ton of already. Also, not all lawyers do defense?
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Evening-Character307@reddit
But then you have a race to the bottom scenario. Public defenders are already the bottom of the barrel right now and through history, what makes you think making all lawyers paid by the state will be better?
Legitimately sounds like one of the worst ideas I've ever heard
An_0riginal_name@reddit
I am a practicing lawyer (not a public defender) and this is not true. Public defenders are the absolute best trial lawyers out there. They have more in-court trial experience than any other criminal defense lawyer. If I were ever charged with a crime I would want a public defender.
OP’s idea has some flaws, but this is not a good argument.
My_Soul_to_Squeeze@reddit
It's my understanding that public defenders are associated with worse outcomes largely because of their workload and clientele rather than lack of talent.
beruon@reddit
Also because the good lawyers get hired by companies for much much more money than they make in the PD office. So only the bad ones remain, plus the ones who do this for conviction. And since the latter is the minority, most public defenders are not the best. (Then add in the workload too)
Walden_Walkabout@reddit
In the US we currently have a situation where law enforcement is doing its best to prevent people arrested from getting any legal representation whatsoever. If we didn't have lawyers working privately for firms like the ACLU they wouldn't be getting any representation at all.
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NeedScienceProof@reddit
LAWYERS AND ATTORNEYS PLEDGE AN OATH TO THE BAR ASSOCIATION AND DO NOT "WORK" FOR THEIR CLIENT.
Ask an Attorney to represent your case using your Constitutional Bill of Rights in your defense and they will quickly say they can't take you as a client...
bunkdiggidy@reddit
The people with capital hated that.
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Due_Bass7191@reddit
Lawyers should become public domain.
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Giuseppe127@reddit
What did taxpayers do to have to pay this?
Good-Welder5720@reddit
Ah yes, slavery.
Giuseppe127@reddit
So you think taxpayers should be the only slaves?
eyegazer444@reddit
If taxpayers are working for free then what are they paying taxes with?
IndicationMelodic267@reddit
Sex.
LordSaumya@reddit
The state fucks all of us in the end
Good-Welder5720@reddit
Starring Johnny Sins as Bill Clinton
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actuarial_cat@reddit
Somebody wanting continental law over common law