This vastly oversimplifies the notion of what is "good" or "fair" in a given situation. Just because we can generally agree on classifying simple objects like a boat or a house doesn't entail that we share a universal notion about the virtuous thing to do in a given situation. Humans (even in the same society/environment) have wildly differing ideas about moral issues like abortion, assisted suicide, medical testing on animals/stem cells, etc. Consider this chart from a 2010 Gallup Poll: https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Pro...
Agreed with ss108. Sure, there are a few law schools (among other higher education institutions) that have overreacted to "wokeness." But that plus a few anonymous accounts from (mostly junior) practicing attorneys doesn't at all mean that the movement has "taken over" America's legal system.
Consider that skilled developers might, on principle, prefer not to work at Facebook/Google or in the defense industry, etc. Maybe they just don't agree with the means and ends that a company uses to generate large profits (and salaries). So sure, a good attorney might prefer not to use his or her rare talents to support a business that gets paid millions of dollars to support/justify a cause/person/business/policy that the attorney doesn't personally agree with. Nothing wrong with that - and certainly not proof that the legal system (or tech industry) has been "taken over" by those who simply prefer to work at other firms with missions they believe in.
Hey, do you have contact info for an inquiry not related to this thread (but related to law and related to tech--legal tech, specifically)?
My Linkedin is already associated with my HN account (for better or worse, probably the latter), so I'll post the link below and you can contact me on there if that's convenient and you're interested:
Same here (M&A/VC lawyer for nearly a decade). Agree 100% on all of the above.
I became skeptical right off the bat when she compared Boies' civil representation of Weinstein (at ostensibly $2,000+ per hour) to the defense attorneys who volunteered to represent Guantanamo detainees.
Most Americans would say that an American businessman has more of a right to effective legal counsel than foreign jihadists detained in Guantanamo. Once you start making the distinction between clients who have more or less of a right to effective legal counsel, you’ve already bought into the ideology complained of in the article.
I don't at all disagree that Weinstein has as much of a right to effective legal counsel as the rest of us.
I'm just pointing out the obvious: there's an enormous difference between (i) an indigent defendant's right to a public defender in a murder trial and (ii) the "right" to be represented in a civil suit by one of the most successful, famous and expensive lawyers in the country. The first is a constitutional right - the second is a market transaction (on both sides).
I think the point is that the quality of justice should not be a market transaction. To echo the GP's point, you accept it, most Americans accept it, but the people described in the article reject it. To them the best legal representation should go to the most vulnerable. Not the richest.
Sort of the opposite. The point I'm making (and the author misses) is that a business decision to make huge profits by representing a "bad guy" in society's eyes isn't remotely equivalent to a moral decision that even the worst (and poorest) offenders in our criminal justice system deserve to have a competent advocate on their side. The public defender is admirable precisely because he or she is driven by a belief in justice despite public criticism and low pay - not simply because it's a lucrative opportunity to generate profits.
Consider that Boies makes more in a (long) day working for Weinstein than some public defenders stand to make in a year. Boies has plenty of other clients he could work for and be paid lucratively - public defenders don't have the luxury of choosing their cases (and aren't in it for the money).
These folks want to upend the taboo that currently exists in the legal profession over judging other lawyers based on who they choose to represent. My point is that this sort of politicization of the profession doesn’t go down the road they think it does. There is no stable equilibrium where lawyers face social blowback for representing Weinstein or Catholic hospitals or Trump but are lauded for representing suspected terrorists and sex traffickers.
You're assuming they are all terrorists at Guantanamo, but it's known now that many of them are innocent randos who got swept up. You're also totally ignoring the difference between torture that violates international law and general human rights norms and getting prosecuted under the rule of law.
You seem to be doing pretty much doing exactly what the woke ppl do w/r/t men accused of sexual assault: you seem to want to decline to apply the protections of the law and its underlying ethical norms to people you don't like and disparage the notion they should have legal assistance.
You like falling back on majoritarian arguments when it suits you (at least twice in this thread, but I'm only partway through!). Are you in favor of abolishing the senate, then?
I'm using the majoritarian argument as a foil. The point is that if we start personally attacking lawyers for how other people feel about their clients, its the folks representing Gitmo detainees that are going to get the disproportionate share of the heat, not ones representing businessmen.
Delaware (and all or at least most other states) requires at least one member on the board of directors for any corporation, whether it's private or public.
For bootstrapped (for lack of a better term) companies these "boards" are pure formalities; it's a running joke among bootstrappers that they flip a coin to figure out who the listed corporate officers are going to be.
At a $0 valuation (assuming that's accurate) you'd be paying almost nothing to participate in the round (assuming you had a contractual right or were given the opportunity to participate).
It's much more sophisticated than just (a) do you or did you work there and (b) did you make money on a trade.
I work at a law firm that does public M&A deals and we occasionally get inquiries from the SEC about, e.g., people that went to my high school (but a different class year) who bought stock in a company my firm did work for in the months leading up to the deal. Obviously neither me or the other person ever worked at either company (or even had any connection to them), but they still identify us as a potential risk because I could have potentially obtained insider info through the firm and then passed it on.
> Even if there is some legislation that goes beyond that structure (honestly interested in seeing a few cases)
It's extremely rare, approaching nonexistent, for laws to have a precise, deterministic meaning because the vast majority of human language doesn't either. Here's a good example from CodeX (Stanford Center for Legal Informatics) that assesses an extremely simple law, which contains a surprising amount of ambiguity[0]:
> "One technical problem with Computational Law, familiar to many individual with legal training, is due to the open texture of laws. Consider a municipal regulation stating "No vehicles in the park". On first blush this is fine, but it is really quite problematic. Just what constitutes a vehicle? Is a bicycle a vehicle? What about a skateboard? How about roller skates? What about a baby stroller? A horse? A repair vehicle? For that matter, what is the park? At what altitude does it end? If a helicopter hovers at 10 feet, is that a violation? What if it flies over at 100 feet?
