Anti-Piracy Lawyers 'Knew Letters Hit Innocents' 240
nk497 writes "A UK legal watchdog has claimed lawyers who sent out letters demanding settlement payments from alleged file-sharers knew they would end up hitting innocent people. The Solicitors Regulators Authority said the two Davenport Lyons lawyers 'knew that in conducting generic campaigns against those identified as IP holders whose IP numeric had been used for downloading or uploading of material that they might in such generic campaigns be targeting people innocent of any copyright breach.' The SRA also said the two lawyers lost their independence because they convinced right holders to allow them to act on their behalf by waiving hourly fees and instead taking a cut of the settlements. The pair earned £150,000 of the £370,000 collected from alleged file-sharers. Because they were looking to recoup their own costs, the lawyers ignored clients' concerns about the negative publicity the letter campaign could — and eventually did — cause, the SRA claimed."
I think Shakespear had it right (Score:5, Insightful)
And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play, but it sure does seem correct now.
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:5, Funny)
Famous qoute, "First Kill all the lawyers" seems apropos. And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play, but it sure does seem correct now.
No, no,no. That's like hitting all your dogs on the nose when one pisses on the rug.
Just shoot the assholes like these and let the other animals learn from that. And if Britain is creating lawyers half as fast as the US is, there will plenty of lawyers to fill in the gap.
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:5, Insightful)
The death penalty hasn't worked to deter extremely violent crimes. If it doesn't work for the scum of the earth, why do you think it would work for an even lower life form?
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The death penalty is designed to prevent (Score:2)
recidivism.
You can be absolutely SURE there won't be repeat offenders.
Unfortunately psychopaths, sociopaths and gummints feel justified in the heinous acts they perpetrate and there are always more of those being born every minute.
Okay gummints not so much because they're harder to get rid of than a SOC7 error at 11:00 at night.
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:4, Insightful)
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Whereas psychopathic and sociopathic lawyers are often very good at dispassionately figuring things out and deciding what the optimum action should be for them (even if it means harming innocent people).
If lawyers who do such stuff start getting executed regularly, they will certainly stop doing it.
I'm not saying this is the right thing to do of course (to me thr
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Honestly, what are the odds that a violent criminal will get the death penalty? Serial rapists can't unless they murder someone. A criminal who cuts off all the limbs of his victims can't get the death penalty unless one of the victims dies.
The Supreme Court found in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the victim must die for the death penalty to be an option. Basically you can rape and brutalize millions of women (and children!) knowing full well that the U.S. government cannot execute you kill one of the victims.
That, to me, is a tragedy.
To me, you are an immense hypocrite - like all the self-righteous who advocate the death penalty.
What you are saying is that to demonstrate it is wrong to kill someone, we should should kill people. Hmmm. And you go a step further saying that extreme violence should be dealt with with greater violence.
Way to build respect for the justice system! Though perhaps those that like to punish, rather than try to rehabilitate, want a disrespected justice system so that people are more likely to break laws, and so t
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm also opposed to the death penalty, but I don't think the GP was actually inconsistent. You're showing an unusual preconception by declaring that execution of a single person is greater violence than serial rape and dismemberment. I think you might be able to make that argument, maybe, if there's only one victim, but I think cutting off the arms and legs of 100 people without killing them is easily more violent than killing one person.
You know it's wrong to kidnap people and lock them into cages, even though the main alternative to execution is to kidnap the criminal and lock them in a cage. For many, many years. With murderers and rapists. There's really nothing inconsistent about executing criminals, and I think it's hypocrisy to complain about killing people to demonstrate it's wrong to kill when we imprison people against their will to demonstrate that it's wrong to imprison people against their will.
I think the death penalty is wrong because we have a flawed justice system, because I believe in attempting rehabilitation, and because I think that even if the person is guilty and a lost cause, I think locking them in a cage forever -- with the option of suicide -- is sufficient to protect everybody since they are now removed from the pool of people that can commit crimes relatively easily. I do not consider the revenge motive, sufficient cause to kill somebody, even if it gives comfort to the victims; I'm invested in the justice system to protect everyone, not for vengeance. This is, I believe, a non-hypocritical position against the death penalty.
Also, you got a flamebait because you flamebaited, not because people just disagree. You called the GP these things:
1. Immense hypocrite (to be fair, I also called your argument hypocritical here, lest I be accused of hypocrisy).
2. Fucking bully.
3. Irrational.
4. Psychopath.
5. Commie (that one might have been a joke).
When really he only pointed out what appeared to him to be an inversion of severity.
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By that reasoning, we know that there are innocent people in jail. We even know that there are innocent people in jail who will never get exonerated (because only a percentage of them ever get exonerated). Therefore we're all kidnappers and deserve to rot in jail forever.
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Yes yes, we all know not ALL lawyers are evil.
But a court case requires atleast two lawyers, so what good is it to kill all but the good one?
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No matter how poor a solution is, you have to come up with a better solution. No courts? Let alleged victims do the prosecution? Force everyone to represent themselves? And how about every organization, how should they get representation? Or maybe immunity? Drag the CEO into every small claims court?
No matter if you remove "lawyer" as a profession, there will always be trained legal experts. People will come to them for advice on what they can do and can't do and how contracts should be set up and whatever.
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Well yes, but you only have to look at other countries to see an alternative - e.g. Japan a few years ago or China now.
In the US contracts are long and complicated because the cost of a mistake is high. The other side is likely to also go through them with a fine toothed comb for loopholes, and legal recourse is expensive, slow and unpredictable. In other countries, businesses will not do business with you if you have a bad reputation so there is a strong disincentive from exploiting loopholes - meaning t
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What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.
What do you call 100 lawyers buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand.
What's yellow and black and makes you laugh and cry at the same time? A schoolbus almost full of lawyers burning. You're crying because of the empty seats.
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Yea, it's just some of the lawyers in the world a giving the other 3 a bad name.
I have a cat (Score:3, Funny)
the cat will shit on the rug, piss on the couch and when you discipline it, it looks at you with a look of "What the fuck is your problem?!" and goes off and does it again.
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After which it looks at you contemptuously and commands: "Now bring the food tribute due to me, slave."
Re:I have a cat (Score:4, Funny)
My cat is looking at me with disdain for reading your post. I'm sure by the end of this reply he'll claw me away from the keybo
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At least you cat didn't sit on your keybolnaagakslgne333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333
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One of the reasons I like my cat -- he's got a better attitude then that. Most he does is go somewhere visible and start knocking things over when he doesn't get the attention he wants (he literally finds the nearest place a few feet off the ground that someone is looking at and starts pushing stuff off the edge to make a mess as a bid for attention)...so he's more like a teenaged girl than anything, just with less cutting. =p
Thankfully most of the attention he asks for is of the "I want to sleep somewher
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My cat doe the same thing, except his preferred target is any glass with fluid in it, only after he has knocked over every accessible drink will he go for things like mail and keys.
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:4, Insightful)
No, there are good lawyers, but bad lawyers like these give the other 1% a bad name.
List of good lawyers I know of:
Lawrence Lessig
NYCL
My divorce attorney
My bankrupcy attorney
Yeah, it's a short list, but still...
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:5, Insightful)
So in other words, lawyers are good when they're on your side.
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of course, whenever you need a lawyer don't you want to have the meanest bastard you can find to drag the other guy through the coals and then spit on him to add insult?
its about winning, not justice.
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When I need a lawyer, I want one the knows the law and can council me on what and what not to do, negotiate with other lawyers, and skillfully represent me in court if court if necessary.
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:4, Insightful)
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So in other words, lawyers are good when they're on your side.
If you're on the right side, yes.
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List of good lawyers I know of: ...
My divorce attorney
I have a feeling your ex would disagree.
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She was a serial adultress, and I could no longer endure the pain. SHE left me and my children before I filed for divorce. She'd been the one who paid the bills (mostly out of my paycheck), and hadn't been paying them for a couple of months, saving up to leave. Bankruptcy was my only recourse after the house was foreclosed and the van was repossessed the banks wanted me to pay for the house and car that they had already taken back.
Shit happens. Pray it doesn't happen to you. Pray that if it does, some ignor
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Hahaha, you just wrote a page out of my life right there. Only I was smart enough to not marry her, still lost 8 years of my life to a childish slut though.
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Maybe the need for the BK attorney came first, leading to the need for the divorce attorney.
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There was one Justice League episode that had the ultimate answer to prevent scumball lawyers - all lawyers share the sentence of their clients.
And how would that work for O. J.?
You have it all wrong. (Score:2)
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm not defending these lawyers, but isn't this "kill all lawyers"-kinda indiscriminate punishment very much akin to what these lawyers are doing and what we're all railing against in the first place?
Aren't most of the politicians in Washington, lawyers? There, fixed that for ya.
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Slashdot needs a +1, Irony mod.
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And does the concept of barratry [wikipedia.org] apply to groups ?
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Famous qoute, "First Kill all the lawyers" seems apropos. And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play, but it sure does seem correct now.
Pirates and sharks, how apropos.
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Famous qoute, "First Kill all the lawyers" seems apropos.
Sir —
Indeed, if you wish to give the rich even greater arbitrary and unfettered powers. Please allow me to present some choice quotes:
"Those who use this phrase pejoratively against lawyers are as miserably misguided about their Shakespeare as they are about the judicial system which they disdain so freely."
From: http://www.howardnations.com/shakespeare.html [howardnations.com]
"The first thing we do," said the character in Shakespeare's Henry VI, is "kill all the lawyers." Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society.
– and –
As the famous remark by the plotter of treachery in Shakespeare's King Henry VI shows - "The first thing we must do is kill all the lawyers," - the surest way to chaos and tyranny even then was to remove the guardians of independent thinking.
From: http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html [spectacle.org]
Who do you think sets up any framework for regulatory consequences or enactment of discipline of the stooges for the RIAA?
What exactly do you think would happen in the absence of any such a framework or discipline?
And I know it probably wasn't what was intended within the context of the play, but it sure does seem correct now.
With respect, to quote "First kill all the lawyers" as an
Re:I think Shakespear had it right (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a very persuasive argument, except you neglect one minor detail: You assume people will take the moral high ground when money is involved. They usually don't. Lawyers aren't any different than Joe Q. Public on the street, excepting that they dress better, make somewhat more money, and (hopefully) are somewhat better trained for their professional field than most.
Additionally, your argument loses a lot of its intellectual purity and moral superiority when you make the reductio ad absurdum argument in paragraph two. Your post would have gone better without that.
Lastly, there is no transparency in the legal system and you're being intellectually dishonest to state otherwise: The legal system is incredibly complex and largely unavailable to the poor. When you have a system that necessitates the use of lawyers and attorneys in every legal preceding, to the point that attempting to advance a case pro se is laughed at by every judge and legal professional -- what then can we honestly say about transparency in the system? If the system requires experts that are licensed through the state to interpret or apply its rules, then the system is not transparent. In fact, it is utterly impervious to external examination, and any protests against it are swiftly dismissed as "uneducated" or rogue. The system is self-contradictory: Practicing law without a license is a criminal offense, but yet ignorance from the law is no excuse for breaking it.
You can be rid of the bastions of knowledge and reason – lawyers – only at the peril of the concept of principle itself.
This conclusion is fallacious. There are systems of justice for which lawyers and attorneys are forbidden from entry, and serve only their original role as counselors: Unable to act in any way on behalf of their clients or to have any direct influence over legal proceedings. These systems do not simply cease to function without oxford-educated people in expensive suits, and these systems generally avoid overly dense and burdensome legal texts because the participants are unable to interpret or use them in any meaningful capacity.
Lawyers should be optional, not a requirement, in the judicial process. Our system has become broken when it requires people charging several hundred or thousand dollars an hour to act as an "advocate" for their clients, and in the process creating a closed system for which money funnels in, and justice is an occasional byproduct of it, happening as much by coincidence as by design.
I thought... (Score:2)
I am looking forward to the lawyer bubble popping.
Re:I thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, that's exactly how it will happen if things keep going the way they are now. There's too much dead weight, and there's more and more every day. Eventually the whole thing will be overspent and it will collapse into civil unrest. That is, unless we all pull our heads out of our asses and stop engaging in this kind of nonsense.
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I thought this kind of shit only happens in the US.
I am looking forward to the lawyer bubble popping.
Why? When did a business ever fail due to unethical behavior? Look at the Catholic church*. Ethical behavior is supposed to be their product, but, somehow they seem to be weathering the child molestation scandal rather well. If the guy who's job is to tell you how to be good can get away with unethical behavior, then what mechanism would shoot down the guy whose job is to help you make money?
* Sorry for making this about religion, but it seems like too good a counter-example.
I see (Score:4, Funny)
Can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs?
"Screw the omlette. Can't go skeet shooting without breaking a few lawyers." -My wife's uncle
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Can i subscribe to http://twitter.com/shitmywifesunclesays [twitter.com] ?
Trash (Score:2)
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I'm not sure if the UK has class action lawsuits.
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A couple of seconds typing "class action uk" into google gave me this: http://www.contactlaw.co.uk/class-action-lawyers.html [contactlaw.co.uk]
Re:Trash (Score:5, Informative)
Class actions don't exist in England, or Scotland. Group actions do, but they are strictly for the benefit those who are direct parties to the action. Unlike class actions, once a judgement is made, it only applies to those who were parties to the action, and not all those affected by the original wrong. Those who were originally wronged, but were not party to the successful group action, must raise a fresh action, and cannot gain anything from a previous group action. So, very different from US class actions.
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A couple of seconds typing "class action uk" into google gave me this: http://www.contactlaw.co.uk/class-action-lawyers.html [contactlaw.co.uk]
But will they work on contingency?
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Or perhaps ask if that infamous pizzeria at /b/ might be interested in dropping some snacks off?
They already went after ACS:Law who were doing the same thing, so I'm sure their brightest and best (almost an oxymoron given the context) are firing up their harassment engines as we speak.
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How about extortion and racketeering? They threatened a group of people they knew to be innocent with a large harm (huge legal bills etc) and offered to make it go away if they made a lesser payment.
Not legit (Score:2)
Things like this tarnish the sparkling reputation of lawyers everywhere!
"...the lawyers ignored clients' concerns..." (Score:2)
The clients were publishers, not ordinary working people, weren't they? Implying that they were swindled by fast-talking lawyers seems rather naive.
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The clients were publishers, not ordinary working people, weren't they? Implying that they were swindled by fast-talking lawyers seems rather naive.
I don't think /. is saying they were swindled, I think they mean to say that the publishers weren't as fucking blindly stupid as they seemed to be: It's not that they couldn't imagine this shit being a bad move, they just fell into their own greedy lawyer-trap.
Can they be sued for malpractice? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Can they be sued for malpractice? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or since a $0.99 song being shared causes $62,500 in damages [wikipedia.org], they (and the industry they represent) should be charged $62,500 * (falsely accused recipient) * (average requested settlement amount).
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May be they should be sued for malpractice and made to pay triple damages. A taste of their own medicine might do a whole lot of good in this case.
This is the kind of thing tort laws were made for. They looked at the law and the penalty for violating it. They calculated that they could make more money by violating the law and paying up when they occasionally got caught, and the "punishment" should be high enough to ensure they don't do it again. I'm talking McDonald's hot coffee money levels. Abuse of the legal system hurts everybody, not just the few people who get nasty letters.
Wow, Lawyers can't speak in English! (Score:3, Insightful)
(My highlighting)
"IP numeric"? "IP holders"? They obviously aren't techies or tech-aware...which makes you wonder how they can ever be trusted to know what they're doing with these legal threats. Oh, yes, that's right, the whole things is a bit dodgy anyway - that explains the lack of technical awareness.
I guess it was all sold to managers without a clue by lawyers without a clue, just a scent of blood (or money, whichever pays better).
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"IP numeric"? "IP holders"? They obviously aren't techies or tech-aware...which makes you wonder how they can ever be trusted to know what they're doing with these legal threats. Oh, yes, that's right, the whole things is a bit dodgy anyway - that explains the lack of technical awareness.
Right - the Solicitors Regulatory Authority are a bit dodgy - oh wait - they were the ones who used the IP Numeric term, not the lawyers who sent out the notices.
But let's not let facts get in the way of our comments.
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News flash - people skilled in one field sometimes make a mess of jargon used in a different field. Film at 11.
Also, you realise that you're quoting the criticism of the lawyers, not the lawyers themselves, yes? The terms may not be quite right, but the concept - that just because an IP address was identified as being involved in the copyright infringement doesn't prove that the person paying for the connection is the infringer - is bang on.
But you go ahead and castigate the people trying to curb this sort
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(My highlighting)
"IP numeric"? "IP holders"? They obviously aren't techies or tech-aware...
I believe they are just mixing acronyms poorly, and that it should be read as 'Intellectual Property holders (ie. possessors) whose Internet Protocol numeric (ie. number) had been used...'
:) The lingo ain't gonna change to suit the way you think it should sound.
So in legalese that just means, "people that did possess and did share copyrighted files, identified by computer logs".
Legalese is a lot older than techie speak. You're about 400 years too late for the 'can't speak English' joke.
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It's perfectly comprehensible - "numeric" parses as "numeric address" which pretty adequately sums up an IP address, while "IP holder" is pretty unambiguously "the person holding a particular IP address". Given that it's written for the legal trade it's completely understandable that they'd write it in their style. I wouldn't rip into a mathematician for saying I expand a wavefunction in a basis of gaussian functions instead of the proper jargon basis set.
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Ah, in that case it's much more ambiguous than I had assumed.
Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
The typical problem of lawyers working on "no cure, no pay" basis. It is very close to police officers being allowed to keep (part of) the fines they hand out to people. They lose their integrity.
Lawyers have a very bad name on /., I believe that has a lot to do with those stupid lawsuits in the US, typical medical related (person is doing something stupid, gets hurt, sues maker, gets awards, and now irons come with warnings like "do not iron clothes while taking a bath"). Suits that are primarily started by "no cure no pay" type lawyers.
In many country that whole practice is outlawed, for good reason. Lawyers have an important role to fulfil in our society, but those kind of actions gives them a very bad name.
Mod parent up. (Score:2)
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And what do poor people do if they need legal representation?
There are many lawyers doing good work for a cut of the settlement, because that's the only way many many people could get someone to pay attention to them.
"Sir, a doctor took my left leg off when I went in for a vasectomy."
"Very good, that sounds like a solid case. Based on similar cases I've argued, it will take around 2 years and cost approximately $60,000. I'll expect 20% up front and I will provide you invoices for services rendered until we'
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Re:Nasty "no cure, no pay" lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Because contingency-basis lawyers have to win cases in order to get paid, they arguably have to hew to a more selective standard than do standard per-hour lawyers. If I'm getting my hourly rate, I'll pretty much do whatever legal faffing you want, as long as it won't get me disbarred or otherwise open me to trouble that isn't worth it. If I get absolutely nothing until I win, I'm going to give the winnability(note, this is not identical with merit) of your case a very good look....
Now, the fact that winnability and merit are not identical, either because(as in this case) they are simply engaging in extortion outside the courtroom, or because(as in some malpractice cases) juries are simple emotional saps is a problem, and contingency-basis lawyers will(as a body that acts roughly value-rationally on average) be willing to take winnable cases whether or not they are justly winnable; but so will standard-fee lawyers(who will also be willing to take unwinnable cases, just or unjust, or harassment cases).
Plus, contingency-basis laywers are, in many cases, the only thing preventing access to justice(particularly civil justice) from being even more ludicrously lopsided than it already is. Criminal defendants have a right to an(often mediocre, horribly overworked) laywer, shockingly "law and order" plays better than "pay more public defenders"... People who have been wronged civilly have to get their own. Since lawyers aren't cheap, this pretty much means that civil justice for anybody who isn't at least upper-middle-class(or sticking strictly to small claims court) is available through a contingency-fee lawyer or not at all. Given the frequency with which civil wrongs are committed down the economic totem pole, "not at all" seems like a pretty lousy option...
The fact that it is possible to win unjust cases, and sometimes simply extort people, is a problem that needs to be addressed. The fact that there are lawyers who are willing to share their client's fate is, if anything, more conducive to justice than the alternative. Contingency-fee lawyers may be like cops who get a cut of the fine(if we consider fines that have to be demonstrated in court, not that "asset forfeiture" crap); in that they will swarm like flies over anything winnable in court; but hourly laywers are like mercenaries, in that they will do the bidding of whoever is paying them, without regard for winnability, much less justice, excepting only actions likely to make them liable to more punishment than is worth it.
If I were going to forbid a type of lawyer-payment arrangement, I'd actually say that justice would be better served by forbidding non-contingency lawyers(except in criminal cases, since a great many of those involve no money, only jail time, changing hands). A contingency-lawyer has to do the best job he can, on the best cases he can, or starve. A fee-based lawyer has to do the best job he can, on whatever his client is paying him to do, or starve. One will necessarily hew to winnability(whose relationship to justice is something that can be controlled by public policy), while the other will be a freelance heavy in the service of his client's economic interests...
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Part of the problem is that contingency-fee lawyers create an imbalance. It just doesn't work when you're a defendant. As a defendant you either cough up a huge amount for a lawyer and take time off from work (probably unpaid) and risk getting socked with a huge judgment (just or not), go in pro se and take an even bigger risk of a huge judgment, or pay a fraction of that in extortion money to make it all go away.
Of course, the absence of contingency-fee lawyers wouldn't remove the imbalance in all cases an
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Conversely though, lawyers often charge extortionate hourly fees and then take their sweet time doing seemingly simple tasks.... I've been billed 3 hours time for 3 emails and proof reading a 1 page document... all at an eye watering rate.
There's a middle ground between contingency-based and hourly-based fees: claim value-based fees. If a claim is worth x, lawyer get paid f(x) based on a preset formula, win or lose; losing party pays; reputation matters.
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Allegedly (Score:2)
Because they were looking to recoup their own costs, the lawyers ignored clients' concerns about the negative publicity the letter campaign could — and eventually did — cause, the SRA claimed
Implausible deniability. Everyone knows that lawyers are so careful, so crafty with the details of the law that they would never be so careless unless their clients specifically instructed them to act this way.
This is nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
Once the three-strikes law comes into effect and they become able to legally blackmail people, all kinds of slease-bags (lawyers or not) will be coming out of the woodwork.
In fact, the smart sleasy lawyers will be making a killing by selling "Kits" and giving "Courses" on "Using the 3-Strikes Legislation to protect your IP":
- Considering that everybody is an IP producer and it's easy to publish your IP on the Net (in fact, this post is an example of both), everybody can go around accusing everybody else of stealing their IP, collect the "settlements" (or "drop the case" when confronted with with somebody that actually fights back) without spending a cent in courts and lawyers beyond the standard notice templates and such from the "Kits".
There being no punishment for wrongfully accusing somebody of IP "theft" and no due process before somebody's connection is cut, a whole new class of easy, cheap and profitable scams will be born.
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If a corporation is a legal person, and a corporation violates my IP, does the whole corporation lose its right to connect to the internet on the third strike? I'm going to assume "no". Reminded of that equal/egalitarian distinction someone made recently.
Re:This is nothing (Score:4, Funny)
"The Economist" and "Viz" view of the UK (Score:5, Funny)
I read these two UK periodicals to get a full spectrum of folks in the UK. From these two, one can conclude that UK citizens (née, subjects) are a highly intelligent, diplomatic and genteel folk, who will punch your fucking teeth out, if you spill their pint. "A pint and a fight, a great British night!"
So it boggles me a bit that UK folks would just pay up on this scam without resistance. It's a good thing that Darl Charles McBride doesn't know about this. Everyone in the UK would be sent a bill for $699 for running Linux on their refrigerators. "Oi! Are yee linuxing up oor lass?"
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Re:Haven't we known this all along? (Score:5, Insightful)
doing something about it
Exactly. These lawyers are in real danger of receiving a sternly-worded rebuke.
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We all knew it, but it seems that now, somebody in a position to do something about it is doing something about it..
(emphasis added)
That's supposed to be us. Clearly you can see the problem...
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Re:Ahem... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think "Pay up now, or we remove all your teeth" is considered a dental plan by most people.
But then again, we know all about those dentists being in cahoots with the mafia, don't we!
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Is that the free tooth extractions with pliers, or the other dental plan where they help your teeth stay in your mouth (the one done by not hitting you in it if you pay up)?
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Wouldn't this be where RICO laws come into play
No.
To explain further, RICO is a law in the United States, and this occurred in the UK.
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Having being on the end of what I felt was a hugely over-stretch request to stop using a trademark (others in the community got a full C&D, I got a "friendly" warning from the company boss - read: barely veiled threat of lawyers) then people change their behaviour because they can't afford not to.
Yeah, I could have risked it and said "you're in the US, I'm in the UK, and I think your argument is tenuous at best given that your trademark is a noun and an agent noun that I am using in a descriptive manner
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Exactly why I'll settle for the strongest remedy that remains legal.
Knowingly sending frivolous legal threats is a serious offense.