Category talk:American lawyers

message: The name of the category together with the restricting paragraph, they both suck. They really do suck. Instead of creating such a counter-intuitive paragraph, why on Earth don't you create a subcategory named "American practicing lawyers"? Shaquille O'Neal is also a lawyer, for heaven's sake. If you remove Shaquille O'Neal, why don't you remove James Cramer? He's not a practicing lawyer either, but you don't know it, because the combination of category name and "explanatory" paragraph is counter-intuitive and relatively unpredictable and sucks. The paragraph sucks.
It's the name of the category that should tell editors what to include in the category, and not a paragraph. I hate it when a paragraph tells me how to interpret the name of the category. The name of the category should be intuitive and simple. If you call the category "American lawyers", it should also be for non-practicing lawyers.
My proposal: as stated above, create a category called "American practicing lawyers" and remove that counter-intuitive paragraph. I hate having to read a paragraph to know what the category "is for", as it says there. That's why we have subcategories, so we can exclude other articles that belong to the main category. The paragraph sucks.
"[M]ost obvious". What the hell is that all about? It's not obvious at all. It says that the connotation "American practicing lawyers" is the "most obvious connotation of the word". That's garbage. It's not obvious. To me, a lawyer is a lawyer, whether practicing or not. "Obvious"? Where's the obviousness in that? The name of the category should not be about connotations. It should be intuitive. It's the name of the category that should be "obvious", and not a connotation that's supposed to be obvious but, in reality, is not.
"This category is for" and "this category is reserved for"? I hate it when a paragraph tells me what to exclude, and that the category is "reserved". Jesus.
"[F]or proper application"? Now you're gonna tell what's proper? If I say that Shaquille O'Neal is an American lawyer, isn't that proper? There's no "proper" subcategory under American lawyers where to include O'Neal, even if he is an "American lawyer", as the category is named. He is not a judge, nor a law professor, nor a legal writer, but he is still an "American lawyer". So, with the restricting paragraph, the whole category sucks. I hate it when a paragraph tells me that my application is not "proper". It puts me in a catch-22. If someone's not a "practicing lawyer", but still a "lawyer", I'm not allowed to categorize him as a lawyer. That's garbage. Absolute and complete and total and utter garbage. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 07:24, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
* Nope.  Shaquille O'Neal is not a lawyer.  He has a bachelor's degree in law, but he has never taken a bar examination and has never been a lawyer.  Go read Lawyer - it says, "lawyering is traditionally considered to be a learned honorable profession requiring, in most common law countries, at least three years of education beyond a bachelor's degree. The degree earned by lawyers in the United States and many other countries is a J.D. or juris doctor. "  He does not have a J.D.  Another note about renaming the category to American practicing lawyers - dead lawyers can't practice anymore, and there are some people in American lawyers right now who are very dead. --Idont Havaname 20:16, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think you'll find a clear consensus for some cases.  When I was in law school, some of my professors considered themselves lawyers (law degree, current bar admission) and some didn't (not practicing law). JamesMLane 13:08, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  For those cases, should we include somebody in the category if they have a law degree and considers themselves to be a lawyer? (We would need some media source to determine that, wherein they say they are a lawyer and/or are described as such.) --Idont Havaname 19:58, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: For the vast majority of them, this information wouldn't be available.  Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU, is one of the most frequently quoted legal experts in the country, and on top of that I've met him and discussed a case with him, yet I have no idea whether he considers himself a lawyer.  I think you're just gonna have to fish or cut bait on the professors, as a class.  Postdlf's point that they could be lumped into :Category:Law professors is basically sound, but there are professors like Larry Tribe who spend most of their time as professors but do take on a few high-profile representations. JamesMLane 07:22, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think you're missing the point. The category is for American lawyers. If someone is an American law professor and an American lawyer then he or she should be in both. Similarly, Bill Gates is a software tycoon (or whatever category he fits in) and a philanphtorist (and a father etc etc). In another case, (this is a joke so don't take it seriously) Bush is a an American president and he is also a wanker (again this is a joke, don't take it seriously) so he should go in both categories.60.234.141.76 20:27, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Some people with law degrees, like Tony La Russa, aren't involved in the field at all, and clearly shouldn't be listed.  But what about someone who practiced for a year or so, hated it, and changed fields?  The current wording, using the past tense, would seem to admit that person.  Some people have both law and accounting degrees and give clients advice that can't be readily pigeonholed either way.  (Some give primarily accounting advice, and the main point of their bar admission is to enable them to argue for confidentiality of the client's communications.)  Some corporate CEO's moved up to that position from being General Counsel -- have they stopped being lawyers?  For that matter, some might argue that even the GC of a major corporation is more of a business executive than a lawyer.  At my old firm, one of the people admitted to the bar was also an information technology expert, and spent most of his time configuring the firm's IT setup -- not directly using his legal knowledge, but able to do his job a lot better because he was (or had been?) a lawyer, and also continuing to spend a small percentage of his time on straightforward client representation.  Then there are courts' judicial clerks, staff attorneys, mediators, etc., who might never in their lives have a client, yet would be considered lawyers by many people.  I don't really care how any of these cases get resolved, but, if possible, the category's defining language should make their resolution clear.  "Bar admission" would be a fairly objective criterion.  Unfortunately, there are people who get admitted and never do anything else as lawyers, so including them doesn't seem right. JamesMLane 07:22, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Category definition

message: The category itself is inherently vague and unnecessary. There is no possible way for anything to list all practicing lawyers, or all American lawyers regardless. There is a constant influx of lawyers who practice law after getting a law degree, and an outflux who die or no longer practice law. Are we to list every single American lawyer ever, from law school professors at obscure colleges to long-dead attorneys from the 19th century? The list would be endless, ridiculously difficult to compile, and impractical. Not to mention that not everyone with a law degree/bar admission practices law, and America has millions of lawyers who practice law in many fields, from corporate law to divorce law to international law. Are we to list all them, too?
I propose Wikipedia create (or if it already exists, merge with) an article of Notable American Lawyers. This category would not include every notable person with a law degree/bar admission, and restrict subjects to those who are icons in the American legal field: Clarence Darrow, Thurgood Marshall, Johnnie Cochran, and the like, while restricting unneccessary politicians and celebrities whose only qualification is they got a law degree. Howard Cosell and Star Jones for example, do NOT belong in this category. This article is impractical and should be removed.--offkilter 22:24, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Nomination for merger/deletion

message: Is it really necessary to put  and  and  5 times in 4 sentences?  Though from reading the complaint here I suspct that repition is thought to strengthen a point.  In anyevent I was wondering if each use of the dubious template could possibly be accompanied with a specific objection (prefrably without using the word "sucks"). Dalf | Talk 22:15, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Over kill

message: Do people who completed law school but never took the bar exam or practiced law qualify under this category? I ran across Shannon Miller's article recently and was wondering if she can really be classified an "American Lawyer" if she has never practiced law. Kinston eagle (talk) 10:40, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: No. postdlf (talk) 17:42, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Technically, she could be, IF reliable sources described her in that way. There are likely lawyers who never went to law school nor passed any official "bar" exams in place X but who still were considered lawyers, but for this individual it appears that she didn't. EVEN if she DID practice law, and take the bar - that is not enough. WP:DEFINING is the test for such job categories. People have many jobs over their lives, but don't classify on all of them (otherwise,  would be full of actors and musicians.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:03, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Bar Exam