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euphronius posted:Try it and report back. Nice, so you're just being an rear end incogneato posted:the myth of lawyerly prestige, but who couldn't get into a better school. Not sure if that counts as a "mill" though. This makes more sense now. Doorknob Slobber fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 17:40
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Doorknob Slobber posted:Nice, so you're just being an rear end Paralegals cannot practice law They can prepare legal documents with lawyer oversight* The cannot represent anyone in court ever+ * in practice some extremely routine forms may be prepared with no oversight by paralegals or other office staff + maybe in some administrative tribunals though this is rare
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Sep 21, 2018 17:46
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it looks like in my state you there are alternatives to going to law school to take the bar exam and be a lawyer which is pretty cool. The cheapest path to lawyering here is probably something like, paralegal associates degree, limited license legal technician program to make money to pay for the next steps, paralegal bachelors program, law clerk program and then attorney.
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Sep 21, 2018 18:25
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That seems like a tremendous waste of money and time. Law schools have evening programs if you need to work.
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Sep 21, 2018 18:28
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euphronius posted:Paralegals can’t write substantial pleadings, motions or briefs or argue in court. I suppose the best of them can compose discovery documents. They can write anything. They just can’t sign and file them. What paralegals do is different at every firm, company, or government office. Sometimes different even within those offices.
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Sep 21, 2018 18:55
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I’m struggling to conceive of the circumstances where a paralegal is single handedly preparing a substantial appellate brief or substantial and non routine pleading or brief in support of a motion in a form which could be filed Theoretically it could happen I guess. Obviously you have cases where lawyers lose their license and work for other attorneys as “paralegals” euphronius fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 19:00
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euphronius posted:I’m struggling to conceive of the circumstances where a paralegal is single handedly preparing a substantial appellate brief or substantial and non routine pleading or brief in support of a motion in a form which could be filed That's a pretty small fraction of the practice of law, is the thing (hence the "non routine"). There are many, many attorneys who go years at a time without actually appearing in a courtroom, or who might go decades without filing anything "non routine", especially if your practice area is something formulaic or solicitor-esque like real estate or elder law.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:22
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euphronius posted:I’m struggling to conceive of the circumstances where a paralegal is single handedly preparing a substantial appellate brief or substantial and non routine pleading or brief in support of a motion in a form which could be filed Yeah, but you said they couldn’t. As in it’s not allowed. They’re allowed to write anything subject to their legal knowledge and capabilities and what the supervising attorney wants them to do. And yeah, appellate briefs are an incredibly small part of actual law practice. Most of law practice is routine, re-used documents.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:33
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No I meant “could not” as in they don’t have the expertise to prepare them
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Sep 21, 2018 19:34
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"Listen, how loving hard can being a doctor be? I mean, I took a first aid class where they went over the basics, so I'm pretty sure I'm good. Anyway, basically all medicine is practiced by the nurses anyway, so if you go to nursing school on nights you can basically do all the important stuff like make diagnoses and practice general medicine." - a famous autodidact doctor, which there certainly are many of I'm sure Lawyers make a living off of the fuckups of others, and really if you have half of a legal education you have all the foundation you need to do more harm than good. What are you going to use ~partial~ law education for anyway? Practice law unlicensed? Give advice without malpractice insurance? This is where you crack open a book on this legal concept called "liability" which routinely kills off even licensed, careful and educated people. The only reason you should get educated as a paralegal is if you want to work as a paralegal. The benefits otherwise are near non-existent.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:35
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Much of law does look routine to non lawyers. Much of what paralegals or legal administrative staff does is routine. Any profession can have bits and chunks sliced off and routinized and made rote under the guidance and supervision of a professional.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:37
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You are hung up on the rarity of arguing in court. It’s not that rare if you include other tribunals such as arbitrations and administrative courts and the skills needed are the same Further appellate law isn’t as rare as you seem to indicate. Even so if you are talking about outside the court practice a paralegal or legal administrative person isn’t going to ab nihilio create a contract to serve the needs of her client for example. euphronius fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 19:43
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euphronius posted:No I meant “could not” as in they don’t have the expertise to prepare them That’s a qualitative judgment you can’t make with a blanket statement. It’s not like regurgitating the summary judgment standard requires years of legal instruction and experience. I could write briefs worth filing the summer after my first year in law school. A seasoned paralegal has more legal knowledge than a rising 2L. Not to mention there are plenty of briefs filed by experienced lawyers that are pure trash.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:45
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Oh 1L. the year you learn civpro, legal writing, and legal research. Amazing coincidence.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:48
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Look Sir Droids posted:Not to mention there are plenty of briefs filed by experienced lawyers that are pure trash. Wait, are you saying the briefs are trash, or the lawyers? j/k we know the answer
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Sep 21, 2018 19:51
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Nice piece of fish posted:"Listen, how loving hard can being a doctor be? I mean, I took a first aid class where they went over the basics, so I'm pretty sure I'm good. Anyway, basically all medicine is practiced by the nurses anyway, so if you go to nursing school on nights you can basically do all the important stuff like make diagnoses and practice general medicine." Yes , exactly the same attitude. I see it all the time. Engineers are the worst about it which is ironic to me. euphronius fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 19:51
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euphronius posted:Oh 1L. the year you learn civpro, legal writing, and legal research. Amazing coincidence. Wow yeah, where you write one memo and one brief. So much experience and Eldrich knowledge.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:55
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You seem to have gone to a poo poo law school. Goondolences.
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Sep 21, 2018 19:56
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euphronius posted:
euphronius posted:That seems like a tremendous waste of money and time. * Not * everyone * has * money * (lol just lol at the idea of paying for law school via a day job, what is this, the boomer 1950's?) I've known two co-workers / friends who took the "attorney but also paralegal" route. Ethical problems weren't the issue in either case. One of them was a crackerjack paralegal for a boutique trusts & estates firm; she was a young single mother and just couldn't afford law school, period. Eventually the attorney who employed her paid out of pocket for her to go to law school because she thought it was a waste that she wasn't a lawyer. The other was a friend of mine who practiced for a few years with legal aid then realized the only way he could pay off his law school debt was to enlist. The Army has better debt repayment plans for enlisted than for officers, so he went in as a paralegal rather than as JAG (technically his salary was lower as a paralegal, but he got far more debt repayment, so his net recoupment was much higher as a paralegal). He did his (four?) years and got out with his debts paid.  I've also seen plenty of small firms that were "led" by functionally inept license hanger attorneys but kept afloat by competent paralegals. I've read plenty of godawful appellate briefs submitted by barely-literate -- but, technically speaking, licensed -- attorneys. That said, sure, law school does provide a certain kind of training that paralegals don't have. But that's not because paralegals as people are any less talented; it's (often) just because they couldn't afford the training. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 19:58
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Suppose a lawyer with their own practice as a sole owner prepared a document such as a will, and then died. Later, the document turns out to be improperly prepared with substantial damages to the estate. Is there recourse, assuming the practice is now defunct and inoperative?
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Sep 21, 2018 19:59
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baquerd posted:Suppose a lawyer with their own practice as a sole owner prepared a document such as a will, and then died. Later, the document turns out to be improperly prepared with substantial damages to the estate. Is there recourse, assuming the practice is now defunct and inoperative? One in this situation could sue his or her estate as liability can arguably be personal. However if the estate is closed good luck. This is a good reason to always have your will updated by the way (say every five years) And if the lawyer who wrote your will dies for the love of god get a new lawyer.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:02
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euphronius posted:Obviously you have cases where lawyers lose their license and work for other attorneys as “paralegals” Interestingly Louisiana specifically bans this in Rule 5.5(e): quote:(e)(1) A lawyer shall not: Hieronymous Alloy posted:* Not * everyone * has * money * (lol just lol at the idea of paying for law school via a day job, what is this, the boomer 1950's?) I did it. Others at my old firm did it. In patent practices it's more common; you can become a patent agent first, do law school at nights, and then just get a promotion at the same firm later.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:03
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I was a paralegal and went to evening school. —— Most states if not all bam disbarred lawyers form doing that by many still so as like .. they need to work to live .
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Sep 21, 2018 20:06
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euphronius posted:You seem to have gone to a poo poo law school. With this kind of negativity and cynicism, you don’t have to be scared of posting in the lawyer thread. And of course I went to a poo poo law school.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:07
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Look Sir Droids posted:With this kind of negativity and cynicism, you don’t have to be scared of posting in the lawyer thread. It’s late on Friday and I’m a bit punchy. I apologize for the needless insult.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:08
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ulmont posted:
Ok, fair enough. I have to wonder if that would still be possible today given rising costs of education -- I remember professors talking about how they'd paid $500, total cost, to go to law school back in the day. (I'm not sure my state currently has a law school that offers evening classes).
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Sep 21, 2018 20:09
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I work in business-side immigration, so there are basically zero court appearances or actual legal arguings, it's 99% completing forms and doing the administrative prep work. I started at my current firm several years ago along with another paralegal - in the intervening years she went to night school and is now a lawyer, I stayed out and got to see my family every day. So now she is an Associate and I am a 'Senior Legal Assistant', but there is virtually no difference in what we do - we both talk to clients and prepare forms/letters, and neither of us actually sign anything (that's done by partners). I guess in theory she could sign things and I can't, and she can also appear in immigration court for clients where I can't, but I have literally never had a client in court in more then ten years so its pretty slim. Earlier this year I did a bunch of digging into old guidance and memos and cases and wrote up a bunch of stuff that is now getting included in lots of our submissions, but because of the way it works that's not a 'brief' or anything formal like that. Hieronymous Alloy posted:I've also seen plenty of small firms that were "led" by functionally inept license hanger attorneys but kept afloat by competent paralegals. In my previous firm I got stuck nursemaiding a baby lawyer who had no idea what he was doing and it was one of the things that motivated me to bounce; I don't mind doing a lot of the grunt work, but drat I'm not going to be trying to puppet an attorney who makes more than me through basic competencies (the other thing was wage freezes and benefit cuts) .
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Sep 21, 2018 20:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Ok, fair enough. I have to wonder if that would still be possible today given rising costs of education -- I remember professors talking about how they'd paid $500, total cost, to go to law school back in the day. (I'm not sure my state currently has a law school that offers evening classes). You'll want a public school (CUNY is $15K in-state, for example). You're probably right that if you have the day job to pay for law school without loans you aren't going to get a better job when you graduate barring other circumstance (winning the biglaw lottery etc.). ...but law school in the evening while maintaining a full-time paying job is going to require less loans than law school full-time with no job under most circumstances regardless.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:30
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You don’t want to work for biglaw regardless.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:31
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euphronius posted:Most states if not all bam disbarred lawyers form doing that by many still so as like .. they need to work to live . I thought lawyers were supposed to be able to get ideas across clearly.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:41
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I can’t tell my phone what to type. It does what it want s.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:42
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baquerd posted:Suppose a lawyer with their own practice as a sole owner prepared a document such as a will, and then died. Later, the document turns out to be improperly prepared with substantial damages to the estate. Is there recourse, assuming the practice is now defunct and inoperative? euphronius posted:One in this situation could sue his or her estate as liability can arguably be personal. What Euph said but in every state for which I've encountered this even if the estate is closed you can just reopen it, though you might need to qualify yourself if the original fiduciary won't or is unavailable. In VA at least creditors can and do qualify as administrators to collect their debts against the estate. You still have statute of limitations issues to worry about though, some new ones of which may have started running at the lawyer's death.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:44
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Doorknob Slobber posted:it looks like in my state you there are alternatives to going to law school to take the bar exam and be a lawyer which is pretty cool. The cheapest path to lawyering here is probably something like, paralegal associates degree, limited license legal technician program to make money to pay for the next steps, paralegal bachelors program, law clerk program and then attorney. The cheapest path by far is to get a fantastic LSAT score and go to a low-ranking accredited school with a part-time program. Edit: the LSAT is for scholarship money
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Sep 21, 2018 20:49
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homullus posted:get a fantastic LSAT score that seems hard. You big time lawyers made fun of me for my basic knowledge of finding ways to take care of my own legal poo poo, but thats more than 99% of people can do and even if you could hire a lawyer for any of that poo poo it would probably be prohibitively expensive. When I was searching for a lawyer to help me get money from an uninsured driver who hit my car I ended up doing it mainly by myself and a little help from this thread and I ended up getting 10k which was 4k more than we spent on the car. No attorney would even actually help me because 'there was no guarantee we'd get any money'. My main interest in law would be helping myself and other people in situations like that where they can't find help anywhere else, not necessarily being some big shot lawyer making crisp hundred dollar bills every few minutes. Thats also why I said the end-game for me isn't necessarily being a lawyer, but learning more about law.
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Sep 21, 2018 21:13
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1. Euph is right: Paralegals are fantastic, smart, and necessary to the practice of law, but they are not lawyers, they are not close in terms of legal ability to lawyers, and its not some classist bullshit to say as much. Sure, tons of the paperwork in the practice of law is rote drafting, but the actual mechanics of practicing law are simply beyond what a paralegal can learn by osmosis. 2. Nice piece of fish posted:"Listen, how loving hard can being a doctor be? I mean, I took a first aid class where they went over the basics, so I'm pretty sure I'm good. Anyway, basically all medicine is practiced by the nurses anyway, so if you go to nursing school on nights you can basically do all the important stuff like make diagnoses and practice general medicine." Or how about, "hell I've been framing houses for 10 years, how hard can it be to be an architect/engineer!" 3. You're an idiot. Nobody thinks they're better than you - you think they do because you're insecure.
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Sep 21, 2018 21:39
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if you want to learn about law go to a school that teaches law, some sort of legal education place.
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Sep 21, 2018 21:42
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Copy from bad with money thread any tree lawyers around to comment on accuracy?
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Sep 21, 2018 21:53
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blarzgh posted:You're an idiot. Nobody thinks they're better than you - you think they do because you're insecure. 1. call someone an idiot 2. claim you dont think you're better than them though
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Sep 21, 2018 22:49
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3. Concede that I too am an idiot. Checkmate bitch
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Sep 21, 2018 22:53
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baquerd posted:Copy from bad with money thread any tree lawyers around to comment on accuracy? Someone posted a story - no idea of the veracity - but where a plaintiff sued because a neighbor had a tree company come onto his property and cut down a hundred-year old tree that had to develop in a forest, although if mature it could live fine in a yard - ie, it would be impossible to replace. He was awarded about 1000 dollars per year of tree growth.
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Sep 21, 2018 23:04
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