The practice of law is disconnected from reality. This is causing lawyers to lose relevance and value.
Laws and legal documents are too complex. Legal documents are lengthy, poorly structured, and difficult to read. Statutes contain a maze of cross-references and technical language. The average person lacks the time, energy, and attention to navigate them. They end up relying on heuristics to fill in the gaps, listening to false information, or focusing on superficial items. Even if the content of law cannot be diluted, it could be presented and structured better. However, lawyers hide behind the maxim that "the law favors the diligent", and expects everyone to be more diligent than even lawyers themselves.
Lawyers insist on pedantic formalities. While process is important, many processes are built in older times and have not evolved. Their importance is lost on the average person. Now they are simply performed so that another lawyer will not use it as an excuse to invalidate things. For example, red stickers bought at a bookshop in place of personal seals, or "paper" board and shareholder meetings of shell companies. Insisting on them makes the legal system look quite stupid.
Lawyers try to evade the reality that they make mistakes. More energy is spent keeping ourselves looking pristine than adding value. We will raise issues but refuse to take a stand. We will hype up trivial issues rather than prioritise. We add disclaimers, cite things as "commercial decisions", and insist on covering all possible ground. The harsh reality is that invulnerability is impossible, the very nature of law is that there is always an avenue of attack.
The result of these is that the value of lawyers is distorted. To the common person, they might even be detrimental. The recent trend has been to try and exclude lawyers from things of importance to regular people. Such as employment tribunals, small claims, or covid relief assessors. Prohibit legal representation for a fair and efficient playing field.
Law and lawyers risk becoming a means of oppression. Having a lawyer to wade through and then impose these complexities is a tool for those with money and power to justify unfair behavior, or deflect attempts at criticism or accountability. Those with power can use the legal system to justify their actions. Privacy policies for example turn an effort to protect user data into a means to justify its blanket collection and use. On the other hand, when challenged, those with power can also use the insistence on strict compliance with rules to protect themselves, such as due diligence processes in criminal investigations.
For everyone else, lawyers are often seen as a slow down, doing things that the lay people we serve do not see to be important. Lawyers end up more as transfer of liability than sources of good advice.
A further effect is that the value of a legal system in structuring society is diluted.
When the legal system impacts a person's life, perhaps binding him to an onerous term that was never read, penalising him with a law that they did not know existed, or rejecting their application due to some ancient process that was not followed, the law looks arbitrary. On one hand it can be used to justify anything by those in power, and also protect them by insisting on strict compliance when challenged. It becomes something we have to accept that we live within, rather than be grateful for its presence.
When law loses a deeper meaning for being followed, society is harmed. Where possible, the law is circumvented altogether. It could be new disruptive business models (e.g. Uber), with all the risks of non-compliance of basic protections for people. Worse, it can take the form of corruption and crime. Compliance becomes a mere bonus, to be done if there is spare time after profits are made.
People cannot participate in running their society. Legal processes are so out of touch with reality that it becomes difficult to understand, verify, and comment. This affects the ability to advocate for a change in law or policy, or to hold institutions accountable. The world becomes structured not on the wishes of people, but on the whims of institutions with their own agendas.
The disconnection with reality used to be acceptable because law had a mystical force to it. However, as legal practice becomes more commercialised, people are more educated, and information is more accessible, this mystical force is disappearing. We need the law not to be mystical, but to be practical and effective.
To end off, while I write critically about my observations of the industry, I know that many lawyers are good people, trying to do good legal work. I think these problems are more systemic than individual, and the result of an evolving world over time. I do hope that as time passes, things will start to develop in the other direction and lead to improvement to society.
Laws and legal documents are too complex. Legal documents are lengthy, poorly structured, and difficult to read. Statutes contain a maze of cross-references and technical language. The average person lacks the time, energy, and attention to navigate them. They end up relying on heuristics to fill in the gaps, listening to false information, or focusing on superficial items. Even if the content of law cannot be diluted, it could be presented and structured better. However, lawyers hide behind the maxim that "the law favors the diligent", and expects everyone to be more diligent than even lawyers themselves.
Lawyers insist on pedantic formalities. While process is important, many processes are built in older times and have not evolved. Their importance is lost on the average person. Now they are simply performed so that another lawyer will not use it as an excuse to invalidate things. For example, red stickers bought at a bookshop in place of personal seals, or "paper" board and shareholder meetings of shell companies. Insisting on them makes the legal system look quite stupid.
Lawyers try to evade the reality that they make mistakes. More energy is spent keeping ourselves looking pristine than adding value. We will raise issues but refuse to take a stand. We will hype up trivial issues rather than prioritise. We add disclaimers, cite things as "commercial decisions", and insist on covering all possible ground. The harsh reality is that invulnerability is impossible, the very nature of law is that there is always an avenue of attack.
The result of these is that the value of lawyers is distorted. To the common person, they might even be detrimental. The recent trend has been to try and exclude lawyers from things of importance to regular people. Such as employment tribunals, small claims, or covid relief assessors. Prohibit legal representation for a fair and efficient playing field.
Law and lawyers risk becoming a means of oppression. Having a lawyer to wade through and then impose these complexities is a tool for those with money and power to justify unfair behavior, or deflect attempts at criticism or accountability. Those with power can use the legal system to justify their actions. Privacy policies for example turn an effort to protect user data into a means to justify its blanket collection and use. On the other hand, when challenged, those with power can also use the insistence on strict compliance with rules to protect themselves, such as due diligence processes in criminal investigations.
For everyone else, lawyers are often seen as a slow down, doing things that the lay people we serve do not see to be important. Lawyers end up more as transfer of liability than sources of good advice.
A further effect is that the value of a legal system in structuring society is diluted.
When the legal system impacts a person's life, perhaps binding him to an onerous term that was never read, penalising him with a law that they did not know existed, or rejecting their application due to some ancient process that was not followed, the law looks arbitrary. On one hand it can be used to justify anything by those in power, and also protect them by insisting on strict compliance when challenged. It becomes something we have to accept that we live within, rather than be grateful for its presence.
When law loses a deeper meaning for being followed, society is harmed. Where possible, the law is circumvented altogether. It could be new disruptive business models (e.g. Uber), with all the risks of non-compliance of basic protections for people. Worse, it can take the form of corruption and crime. Compliance becomes a mere bonus, to be done if there is spare time after profits are made.
People cannot participate in running their society. Legal processes are so out of touch with reality that it becomes difficult to understand, verify, and comment. This affects the ability to advocate for a change in law or policy, or to hold institutions accountable. The world becomes structured not on the wishes of people, but on the whims of institutions with their own agendas.
The disconnection with reality used to be acceptable because law had a mystical force to it. However, as legal practice becomes more commercialised, people are more educated, and information is more accessible, this mystical force is disappearing. We need the law not to be mystical, but to be practical and effective.
To end off, while I write critically about my observations of the industry, I know that many lawyers are good people, trying to do good legal work. I think these problems are more systemic than individual, and the result of an evolving world over time. I do hope that as time passes, things will start to develop in the other direction and lead to improvement to society.