Talk:Lawyer/Archive 1

message: Could someone do some more research on the legal monopoly? Coolcaesar (who has done sterling work on this page) has put reference to an "1804 law" which seems to be the origin of the monopoly. Can a reference be supplied. I have had a browse through the statute book of 1804 and see nothing directly on point. Francis Davey 17:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that's directly from the book by Stevens (the leading scholar on the history of American law schools) and Abel-Smith.  If I recall correctly (I'm not in the public library right now), they cited the minutes of an 1804 Law Society meeting as published in the Law Society's Gazette as well as several older books from the 19th century on the history of solicitors.  Apparently the Law Society had been sending delegations regularly to the Prime Minister since the early 1780s begging for relief from the special taxes.  These included the stamp tax as well as several taxes levied directly upon the licenses of both solicitors and attorneys (who apparently existed in England alongside solicitors as late as the 1830s).  When William Pitt the Younger was thinking about raising the taxes again in 1804, the Law Society went to him with the idea of getting a monopoly on conveyancing, Pitt refused to back off on raising license taxes but agreed to the proposed monopoly, and the Law Society immediately drafted a bill for Parliament's consideration at its next meeting.  Unfortunately, I don't recall seeing a reference to a particular Act of Parliament, though.--Coolcaesar 20:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Section 14 Stamp Act 1804 (I missed it on the first pass). I really hate writers who say "a law of...", since they all have unique citations and its usually a mealy mouthed way of saying they don't know, or can't be bothered to do the research. All the references I consulted failed to give me a citation, so I had to search the statutes for it. I've toned down the "outraged" remark, since that seems to be overly strong (or possibly one historical POV) though it clearly was a quid pro quo. I thought "solicitors and attorneys" was a little odd, since they are now both the same profession, but other professions (such as barristers and notaries) were included under the Stamp Act, so I have made some mods. Francis Davey 20:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monopoly? 

message: Specifically, the paragraph that deals with lawyers/capita in the us
Could an argument be made also that the presence of a Common Law system almost mandates a larger legal sector as most law is judge-made and thus subject to interpretation? Contrasted with the civil law system, where laws are more codified and thus the size of the legal profession managing these laws isn't as great, this could account for the greater proportions of lawyers in a Common law nation. Additionally, since the US is a common law system with the largest number of internal political divisions (i.e. 50 states) and a federalist system of government, it would seem that a larger legal profession would be almost a foregone conclusion. 
do you think this argument is something that should be added?
what happened to the poland section now we have no representation of civil law countries in this article. 
Paladine
:It was still there. Anon removed Wiki markup, thus section from TOC disappeared, but data was still there. Reverted. Przepla 19:11, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section about Lawyers in the US 

message: I didn't understand a thing on this page. Perhaps because it was written by lawyers? ;) Details about law practices in US/UK/Pol should be moved to a separate article and more text should be devoted to the profession and history. Nichalp 20:02, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're getting at; the page is no more unreadable than other Wikipedia pages on other professions like "Physician."  
In my opinion, the page, as is, does a decent job explaining what a lawyer is at present, what they do, and how to become one.  
If the page were to be rewritten to focus on the history of the profession, that would actually make it much harder to understand, for virtually everyone but lawyers.  The profession has changed radically depending upon which country and time period you are talking about.  Although modern American lawyers like to see themselves as the intellectual descendants of the great Roman orators, they have very little in common except for their general responsibility to advocate on behalf of specific named clients. 
And if you're talking about law as a profession in the strictly "professional" sense, I'm not sure what you're getting at.  The professional responsibility of lawyers is an important topic, but not appropriate for this article.  It's really a subject of legal ethics, which most non-lawyers find boring.
--Coolcaesar 03:19, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lawyers?? 

message: I wonder which were the first countries:
* To allow the defendant in trials for severe crimes to have a lawyer. If I understand it correctly, in England, before the Prisoners' Counsel Act of 1836, felony defendants could not have a lawyer in court. This probably extended to other common law countries.
* To mandate, in such trials, that the defendant should have a lawyer, and to appoint a lawyer if he did not have one. In France, this was mandated in the Napoleonic Code of Criminal Instruction.
* I'm unsure about US courts at the time. It seems that the right to counsel was a much later addition when it came to trials in state courts. One finds a mention of a 1853 Indiana Supreme Court decision declaring it a right, and a 1963 US Supreme Court decision making it a right for some crimes even in trials under state law. .
David.Monniaux 07:12, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Right to counsel 

message: I've removed the following section under the heading 'public opinion':
:Lawyers are also the object of scorn in many lawyer jokes and are usually identified one of the more disliked profession, often just a head of politician.  The reasons for this dislike are numerious and varied although cheif among them could be that: defense lawyers are seen as helping morally corrupt individuals get off on technalities, that in the american adveserial system the object isnt truth but 'winning' and that lawyers play fast and loose with the truth.
:This low opinion is somewhat paradoxical in that many lawyers enter the profession because of a desire to help for and advocate on behalf of individual and their freedoms.  It could be that in a nonloser pays system in America, the fear of the large cost of being sued (since you lose money even if you 'win') translates into a fear and dislike of lawyers.
I've had some mixed feelings about removing this; as the first paragraph has some truth to it, though the second paragraph is a bit more argumentative. --Bletch 22:52, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Original Research 

message: Fascinating revert to omit "permission to practice law" from the "Benefits of admission" section. Real contribution there. (Sixten8 06:22, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Benefits of Admission 

message: I just removed the following paragraph:
:In recent years, there has sometimes been competition for graduates of first and second tier law schools such that various mega firms in New York City and other large U.S. cities hired graduates of Canadian top tier law schools in preference over graduates of U.S. third tier law schools.
I read Law.com regularly (as well as the ABA Journal, and the Daily Journal, the main legal newspaper in California) and I have never seen anything about such a bizarre trend over the past 3 years.  Law.com is the online operation of American Lawyer Media, which publishes American Lawyer magazine and the National Law Journal.  
Of course, self-authenticating assertions can stay on Wikipedia, but this is a rather daring assertion that frankly, sounds ridiculous.  After all, Canadian law is quite different from American law, both in terms of substantive rules and preferred writing styles.  Until someone can bring in a citation to prove it, I think it has to stay out of the article.  --Coolcaesar 04:38, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, but that's a rather subjective observation by one law school's career services office.  Do you have any citations to legal newspapers or magazines to demonstrate that point?  --Coolcaesar 13:55, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why this passage had to go... 

message: Hello everyone:
At 38 kilobytes, I think we are getting to the point where the Lawyer article has to be broken up into separate articles.
Here is my suggestion for how to break it up:
Lawyer becomes a very general description of what lawyers do.  I mean REALLY general.  Maybe we can have one description for what common law lawyers do and another for civil law lawyers.  And then all the other messy details (education, admission, career path, statistics, etc.) should be shunted off to country-specific articles.  Like Lawyers in the United States, Lawyers in Poland, etc.
Some things (like freeways) are similar enough around the world to remain mostly together in one article, but I think the whole concept of what it means to be a lawyer is different enough from one country to the next that it has to be broken up.  Otherwise, people will keep on wandering in and adding stuff, and we will end up with a 200KB overview of lawyering in 55 countries which no one will actually read.
What does everyone think?
--Coolcaesar 04:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is a mess