From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Online Legal
Date: 28 Sep 92 12:19:12 GMT

srm@world.std.com (Stevens R Miller) writes:

> rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson) writes:
> 
> >[documents small number of on-line legal groups]
> >
> >Does it mean that lawyers and people interested in legal matters aren't
> >interested in online discussion of legal matters in public "cyberspace?"
> 
> Maybe, but it goes both ways, IMHO.  I can't begin to tell you how much
> public and personal e-bashing I've taken, just for posting the law, and
> attempting to explain it.  In a fashion all too common in cyberspace,
> what I have said is usually ignored, in favor of what I *haven't* said.
> That is, when I post a statute or case summary, I must usually state in
> tedious categorical terms that I don't agree with it, or else it is
> assumed that I do.  This is almost as often accompanied by some derisive
> assertion that being a lawyer pollutes one's brain and makes one's words
> inherently suspect.

Very interesting.  I do think, though, that some of the problem is
with lawyers. In psychology we have the phrase "giving psychology
away," by which we mean demystifying it as much as possible and
trying to put established psychological knowledge in a form that
people can use.  Doctors are doing much the same thing.  They no
longer present quite so much as priest-like figures with magic
solutions (pills), but instead as teachers who try to explain how
you can stay healthy by modification of lifestyle: diet, exercise,
smoking, drinking, etc.

Aside from the American Bar Association's _You and the Law_, there
aren't many books by lawyers "giving away the law" to laypersons.
Maybe it's because there are too many lawyers.

However I can certainly sympathize with your experiences. [Omitted
for sake of brevity.]  It seems silly for people who don't like
lawyers because lawyers won't communicate in a form they can
understand to get angry and take it out on any lawyer who _does_
attempt to dialogue in a broader context.

Psychologists seem to have discovered the law within the past
decade or so.  Many, I think _most_, of the leading clinicians
have respecialized into forensic psychology: mostly custody
evaluations and fitness to stand trial issues -- because there is
more money in that than in psychotherapy or testing.

My own interest is a little different.  I've done some forensic
psychology, but it's something else about the law that intrigues
me.  [And I've talked to teachers and social workers who are
coming to a similar idea.]  I think all the violence in the
schools may have a legal solution (rather than an "economic" or
"psychological" or "spiritual" one).  Suppose instead of going to
get a gun and prove how macho he was, a threatened student went to
the law?  [I got interested enough in the idea to go to some
seminars in the new "empowerment" movement -- augmenting criminal
proceedings with civil suits -- but empowerment doesn't work for
poor people because the perpetrator who wronged you by committing
a criminal act of which you were the victim hasn't got any money
for which he can be sued.]

So I guess it's beside the point _why_ so many people have a
negative attitude toward lawyers. [Even archcapitalist Monty Burns
on The Simpsons was badmouthing lawyers, even as he was requesting
legal advice on how to get over on his workers!]  _I_ don't have a
prejudice against attorneys and I want to understand the law -- in
much the way that I want to understand medicine.  [My office is in
a medical clinic so it's easy for me to refer to a doctor, but
even if I had an office off by myself I'd want to know enough
_about_ medicine to know when it was necessary to send my patient
to a doctor. The analogy is a good one since we are prohibited by
law not only from practicing medicine but also from acting in such
a manner that a patient _believes_ we _are_ physicians. Certainly
I can also discuss legal issues with my patients without
practicing law.]

--
Richard Carlson
Internet:              rc@depsych.gwinnett.COM
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