Asymmetrical Information

Meh.

A telling point on legal ethics is that all law reviews check each footnote in a legal article because of how commonly lawyers lie about facts.

Because it certainly couldn't be borne out of a field that relies on thorough citation of authority for each claim, a field in which an accidental mistake in a footnote could lead to costly and misleading miscitation in future writing, and thus extreme care is warranted. Better we should have the methodologies of nobler professions like historical academics, in which citations are blindly trusted as long as one agrees with the author's conclusions.

Anglo-american law holds that the highest right anyone has is the right to sue anyone else for anything. That actually trumps everything else.

Well that would certainly explain the considerable rise in grants of summary judgment for the defendant in federal civil cases, wouldn't it?

The judges view law written by the legislature as suggestions, after all only the judges can say what it really means.

Tell that to people who labor under our burdensome regulatory state, which many contend is wholly unconstitutional (via the nondelegation doctrine), yet which is upheld constantly using Chevron and other deferential standards that require upholding regulations that can be justified for any imaginable reason, even if the regulatory agency itself had never thought of that reason.

I hope Medpundit's lawyer friend spellchecks his legal documents better than his rants. Legal cannons haven't been permitted in the courtrooms since the Pirate Days of Yore.

I've long thought of lawyers as modern-day fuedal lords. They "protect" the common folk for terrible, terrible enemies, and claim lots of booty for the effort, but mostly they just protect us from others of their own kind.

The "lawyer's" comments tell, raggedly and emotionally, how the status of legal counsel can be abused, not how it is or could be used. As to lawyers not having to tell the truth, I take it this lawyer hasn't read the Canons of Ethics lately. Perhaps he should start a practice in suing lawyers for legal malpractice.

This "friend" of Medpundit enjoys the "sound-bite", doesn't he/she?

All the statement shows is the lack of understanding this "lawyer" has in the law.

While I am the first to admit that the legal system has myriad problems to deal with, simply slamming the system, without coming up with reforms (and without being entirely accurate either) is a waste of time. People who complain like this, without giving adiquate solutions to the problem, show a obvious lack of creativity.

And yes, while our legal system is based on 12th century crap, it has evolved, much like neanderthal man became modern man (unless you believe in creationism, in which case, you can ignore the analogy). The legal system of the 12th century is VERY different that the system today, with only the vestages of a tail remaining. This "lawyer" is an idiot.

Now you see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed! ;-)

With that out of the way, one gets the distinct impression that this "lawyer" (if that is, indeed, what he/she is, since I have serious doubts) would be much happier as a law professor, grandstanding from his/her soapbox to an audience of law students, and failing to recognize that 90+% of them could care less about this tirade against "the system" and how it's so antiquated and terrible. Could it use some serious reforms? Almost certainly. Should we throw out the baby with the bathwater? This imbecile would say yes, but I'd say the same of it as Churchill said of democracy: it's the worst system, except for all the others.

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