Talk:Lawyer/Archive 2

message: I think that this article needs a "criticism of lawyers" section, and should mention problems and concerns about excessive litigation, twisting the law, Critical Legal Studies and so on.  Lawyers sometimes have a very bad name (law prof Jack Balkin apologizes to prostitutes for the indignity of being compared to lawyers), and I think that both sides should be able to address this issue in the article.  Before add anything, I wanted to make sure there was consensus or at least assent to do so.  Thoughts? Dave (talk) 23:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I used to be opposed to a criticism of lawyers section.  But I was just reading Lawrence Friedman's History of American Law in the 20th Century this week (see the edit I recently made to the Nevada article).  Friedman has a very nice section analyzing the poor public reputation of American lawyers and the huge variety of lawyer jokes.  I guess if America's foremost living legal historian feels necessary to discuss why American lawyers are so poorly perceived, Wikipedia may as well discuss it too.  But to maintain Wikipedia's neutrality, we should limit the discussion to paraphrases of the points expressed in neutral works by academics like Friedman.  --Coolcaesar 03:06, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you saying that the Jack Balkin article I linked to is out of bounds, or just making a general statement? He's clearly qualified to write on the subject.  I'm not saying we have to quote him calling lawyers "whores," but the argument that legal interpretations can justify a lot of bad stuff should be included, and I think we would be doing a disservice to the reader if we didn't point out that lawyers were on both sides of a lot of important social issues, including ones we now consider to be crucial for human rights. Dave (talk) 03:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm saying the article is out of bounds because it's a blog posting.  Blogs are inherently unreliable.  Wikipedia policy is to use reliable sources when available, and there are already lots of formally published works on the negative public perception of lawyers.  But you're right, the argument should be included.  --Coolcaesar 20:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I noted above, Balkin is a Yale Law professor, and while his article wasn't reviewed before he published it online, he's still eminently qualified to talk about his profession.  Dave (talk) 00:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's not the lack of peer review or his academic qualifications that's the issue, it's the reliability and seriousness of blog postings.  The advantage of documents published on paper is that more thought and work goes into them because once it's out there you can't take it back.  It's basically the online equivalent of a diary or thinking out loud.  Again, I don't see Balkin as saying anything more than what's been said in a more refined form in many paper publications.  --Coolcaesar 23:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you find something better, you can swap it in. Dave (talk) 00:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism section 

message: Progress update for everyone: I got Richard Abel's comprehensive books on Lawyers in Society and Lawyers in America out of the public library to prepare for a full rewrite of this article as well as the drafting of Lawyers in the United States.  Abel's books are a fun read, but it's also a lot of information to digest (for example, the incredibly messy situation with jurists in France).  I hope that in a few days I will have absorbed enough to start drafting at a subpage of the talk page.  
At this point, I think that there are enough general similarities between what lawyers do across the common law and civil law worlds to not have to bifurcate the article as it currently is.  Rather, I will be structuring the article around "What lawyers do," "Lawyer regulation," etc., written in terms of very broad generalizations with appropriate digressions to cover the weird exceptions.  
For example, one similarity I've noticed is the tendency of federal states like Switzerland, Canada, and the U.S. to regulate lawyers through integrated bar associations (or equivalents) at the state/provincial level.  Another is the strong similarity between the Italian Ordine and the American integrated bar association (in terms of their connection to the state).  --Coolcaesar 23:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am starting work right now on a draft at Talk:Lawyer/2006 rewrite. It will take a while.  --Coolcaesar 03:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Still working on reorganization

message: The Lawyers Know Too Much
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
LegalEagle1798 04:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Possible copyvio material removed - please show permission to copy this poem before posting it it on Wikipedia. Thanks. bd2412 T 18:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: lawyer humor