k wrote:

Its bullshit that people need to hire lawyers to solve their problems. Its ridiculous that the law is written in such confusing and arbitrarily convuluted language that ordinary people can't understand their rights or laws that are meant to protect them.

I'm not sure I agree with this statement. I do agree that it would be nice if everything was simple and understandable, but I'm not at all comfortable with the implication that the world is particularly able to offer that simplicity.

In every field of human endeavor, we hire experts to handle things we do not have sufficient time, inclination or intelligence to learn how to handle on our own.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't strive to make the system as reasonable and accessible as possible, but the logical extension of that is not the elimination of subject matter expertise. You can no more do away with lawyers as with programmers or chefs.

Just to take this thread into a completely different direction, I'm not sure I agree that subject matter expertise will always be needed and command a premium. What's changing in our world today is the necessity of using these resources for rote tasks.

One of the reasons for this is the explosion of communications tools that allows anyone to quickly get enough information to ape a subject matter expert in many tasks. Another is the expert systems that are proliferating which provide decision support and context to allow someone with minimal subject matter expertise (nay, follow directions?) to accomplish many expert level tasks (see: Nurse Practitioner). And finally, you have the demand side of the equation, which is to say that the market is not wanting to pay people like attorneys thousands of dollars to do things like issue boilerplate text for your living will.

I bring this up because in a lot of ways, being an 'expert' is starting to look like a poor career choice in a lot of fields. Go walk into a Minute Clinic at CVS and see what I mean.

That fundie guy uses the education he has recieved in science to (attempt to) dismantle its core assumptions and prove that his view of the world is correct. If I can do something analagous with my law degree, without convincing myself along the way that my core assumptions about humanity were wrong, then I will consider this lawschool thing a success.

I think this is a noble effort, but i worry that the last statement shows what I consider a flaw. If you are able to convince yourself that your core assumptions were wrong, then why should you consider that a failure? It implies that your current beliefs are absolutely correct, and that modifying them is unacceptable. This is a dangerous starting point, of course.

Without question, we can't just accept everything foisted upon us without analysis, else we end up as sheep. But I should think that the metric must rather be that we allow change at all times, after careful consideration. That is, the only failure possible is a failure to adequately try to understand the reasons we think a certain way.

And with that, I give you this.

flynn23 wrote:

Just to take this thread into a completely different direction, I'm not sure I agree that subject matter expertise will always be needed and command a premium. What's changing in our world today is the necessity of using these resources for rote tasks.

One of the reasons for this is the explosion of communications tools that allows anyone to quickly get enough information to ape a subject matter expert in many tasks. Another is the expert systems that are proliferating which provide decision support and context to allow someone with minimal subject matter expertise (nay, follow directions?) to accomplish many expert level tasks (see: Nurse Practitioner). And finally, you have the demand side of the equation, which is to say that the market is not wanting to pay people like attorneys thousands of dollars to do things like issue boilerplate text for your living will.

I bring this up because in a lot of ways, being an 'expert' is starting to look like a poor career choice in a lot of fields. Go walk into a Minute Clinic at CVS and see what I mean.

Not such a different direction, actually. I think that you're right... my statement regarding expertise reflect the current state of most areas of endeavor, but certainly not all, and I wouldn't at all suggest that the state of things will remain that way.

I think that expert systems and the vastly increased availability of information will combine to minimize (if not eliminate) the value of knowledge-based experts over the long term. Not so long ago I and some other regulars here were discussing software-aided software design and the eventual state in which special purpose software is generated by other software... there's no fundamental reason this won't work in principle.

I think that it'll be some time before expertise is devalued enough to change the landscape completely. In the meantime, I've always tried to be a generalist, which is comforting in the context of this conversation. At any rate, I tend to pick up the basics of new skills rapidly, but never transcend a certain level of competence (depending on the skill, somewheree between "ok" and "highly competent". I don't consider myself an expert at anything.)

I think it's compelling to find that the most crucial skill from now on may well be the ability to locate, evaluate and organized information. The google-ization of everything, perhaps.

I find it even more interesting to consider the effect this may have on other areas, most specifically, the craft and design of physical objects. If knowledge work eventually puts itself out of business, as it were, will the result be a resurgence of physical skills, which comprise aesthetic and social elements that can't be replicated? One of my many hobbies is woodworking (very amateur at present) which has some fundamental similarities to the creative aspects of my knowledge-based day job, but the end result of which is different in a lot of important ways. That gives me comfort as well.

k wrote:
In every field of human endeavor, we hire experts to handle things we do not have sufficient time, inclination or intelligence to learn how to handle on our own.

YES, but should we? Is it always necessary to professionalize, to make a language that the layman can't understand? Sometimes, I think law is unnecessarily complex in order to avoid violence and, perhaps, revolution.

In reality, the law is often breathtakingly arbitrary. The same case with narrow differences comes up and recieves different treatment, over and over and over again. How are the differences explained? Judicial prejudice, jury make-up, but mostly the fact that there is a theory for every argument. In th end, that may be the best system anyways (the best argument wins) but all the same, its hard to call it fair or grounded in scientific principles. (Not that you said that.)

SO- not only is the law a very different system from how it presents itself, but it seems to me to be deliberate in adding complexities to grievances that might be better served through social change and direct action. For instance, suing a grocery chain for refusing to open in poor neighborhoods would be a passive solution. Organizing community gardens would be active, and probably solve the problem more quickly. 1.5 million women suing Wal-Mart for sex- discriminination yields small individual settlements or years of litigation. 1.5 million women going on strike? Maybe immediate results. (Sometimes these courses of action could be combine, ect.)

So I guess what bothers me is that lawyers say to people: this is a legal problem that is too complicated for you to understand, let alone solve. People on all sides of the system back this contention up. Sometimes, though, this convulates issues and takes it out of the hands of those people who could be most instrumental is solving them.

And I again, I think thats bullshit. But I suppose its kind of like the weather: everybody talks about it but nobody every does anything.