

Why I Left the Law (1997) - Zuider
http://www.spectacle.org/797/law.html

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rayiner
> An attorney is called upon at the birth of an organization and then, later,
> when it is sick or dying. Two or three times a month like clockwork I would
> sign up a new client in the throes of a software warranty dispute; I would
> usually find out that the deliverables had been ill-defined, that there was
> a mismatch of expectations between the parties, and that the warranties and
> the conditions of acceptance had not been specified.

This is an apropos description of what a litigator does. They're there when
the optimism and hype if a project "to be" gives way to the cold hard reality
if a project as it "turned out." I imagine many people find this depressing.

That said, its really fun in its own way. My wife is a bankruptcy attorney,
and loves this aspect of her practice. Bankruptcy practice is all about
expectations meeting reality. The $40 billion EFH bankruptcy winding its way
through the courts was a bet on gas prices going up that hit the reality of
fracking driving up supply. Its fun, in its own way, to try and clean up the
resulting mess. If I had my way, I'd only ever take cases where things had
gone really sideways.

~~~
gav
> If I had my way, I'd only ever take cases where things had gone really
> sideways.

I like taking on projects like this. The client won't fight with you about
your bill-rate because they've seen what the result of being cheap is. The bar
is set pretty low, it's already screwed up, you can only make it better.

~~~
x0x0
my experience is very different: often problem projects are in that situation
because of problem clients. How do you work out the difference before
committing?

edit: though I bet not dealing with clients that quibble about billing rates
excludes lots who didn't learn their lesson the last time

~~~
gav
I like to only commit to a short elaboration, several weeks of documenting the
state of the current project and coming up with a plan to get it on track. I
then offer the client the option of continuing, almost always at T&M at this
point, or they can take my write up and shop it around.

The plan generally starts with a "stop all new work and stabilize" phase;
getting code metrics and an idea of technical debt; fixing processes, builds,
making sure testing and QA is in place; and so on before any new work is done.
Any client that isn't willing to pay for these things is just replacing one
bad implementer with another.

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TheMagicHorsey
Former lawyer here. I left the law for similar reasons. I used to be a
software patent attorney. I got fed up with the kinds of things people were
filing patents on. I felt it was all a complicated extortion scheme.

I left the profession and took a 70% pay cut my first year out. I'm still
happy I did it.

~~~
QuantumChaos
good for you

------
igurari
>I was enticed by the idea of running a software business myself, and making
organic, creative decisions.

This quote resonates with me because it describes my own flight from the law.
On a day-to-day basis, the practice of law is relatively non-creative, rote
and ultimately dull, at least when compared to technology and programming. The
law just moves so slowly. When programming, thinking about the development of
a product, or even running a company, I can explore a dozen or more creative
and complex ideas in a day. I also experience feelings of success (and
failure) every single day. Litigation doesn’t permit that. The anticipation
and excitement of successes and failures are fewer and further in between —
even that they can be very big and rewarding when they occur.

The author’s description of dealing with judges and attorneys in New York
state court are disappointing. The law has structure and my vision is to map
it out with sufficient detail and accuracy that we can put it on “rails,” the
way most people assume it works when discussing “the rule of law.” Robolawyer
will never be in the cards but it should usually be clear what laws are at
issue, what arguments are relevant, and how the balance of past cases have
applied those laws to particular sets of facts. Mapping out the law means we
can guide reasoning along well worn paths, make it easier to express the logic
of the law, and thereby shame “terse, incoherent one paragraph opinion[s]” out
of existence.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
> The author’s description of dealing with judges and attorneys in New York
> state court are disappointing.

What makes you think that any other city or state is any different? I've heard
a few stories about Oregon that make me think it's pretty much the same here.

I think people would be very wise to avoid lawsuits unless they have a very
very strong case. And even then be prepared to lose or to litigate for years.

It's a lot messier than engineering.

~~~
sjy
In most common law countries judges are not elected and don't get away with
the kind of thing discussed in the article (like informal ex parte
conferences).

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oneweirdtrick
1997: I left the law because it is an inherently unpleasant profession and I
wanted to pursue something else.

Present Day: I left the law because I had no choice.

[http://online.wsj.com/news/interactive/LSCHOOL20120625?ref=S...](http://online.wsj.com/news/interactive/LSCHOOL20120625?ref=SB10001424052702304458604577486623469958142)

~~~
smsm42
The table doesn't look _that_ bad - for the first page, if sorted by
"requiring law degree" column, for all schools at least 70% work either at job
that requires or prefers law degree. Of course, if you look at the worst ones,
the figures are abysmal, but isn't that somewhat expected?

I'd like to see another table however - which correlates the law-related
employment chance with the cost of the law degree. E.g., how much chance of
being a lawyer you can buy for $10k?

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tomohawk
Yet more ammunition to prefer non-incumbent candidates over incumbents, and to
prefer non-majority party candidates over majority party candidates in local
elections.

Too often, local politics gets owned by a single party, and that is rarely a
good thing.

Too many people are too consistently party line when they vote in elections.
If you live in a R area, vote D locally. If you live in a D area, vote R
locally. Just hold your nose and do it.

~~~
ensignavenger
Or you could vote for the people you think will do the job the best.

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mrjayharris
Yet another former lawyer here, current engineer/PM. I agree with many of the
already stated reasons why a career in tech beats lawyering, but what really
did it for me was wanting to do something for myself instead of always just
being somebody's lawyer.

Once I made the switch I realized the joys of building a tangible product that
users get to know and love.

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wizzard
I wonder what the judicial system would look like if people were completely
truthful and forthcoming. It seems like 90% of a lawyer's job revolves around
dishonesty. That's got to be a frustrating career.

~~~
ams6110
What I find about lawyers is that they often seem to create conflict where
there is none or inflame conflict where it already exists, to set themselves
up as the savior. A very simple example of this was the first time I bought a
house, everything was very cordial up until the moment lawyers got involved to
review the closing documents. Suddenly everything was an argument, with no
ground given until the other party gave up something. In retrospect it was
really just seemed to be the lawyers justifying their presence.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
This is actually a serious problem. There are plenty of things you can put
into a major contract that will have the effect of transferring e.g. $10,000
in value from one party to the other. Or you could just flat out argue over
the price. And both parties might still agree to the contract either way.

The issue is that it's economically advantageous to pay a lawyer anything up
to $5000 in fees if the result will be a 50% chance that you can net $10,000.
So the parties could collectively pay the lawyers $10,000 to argue over who
should get $10,000, even assuming everyone is acting rationally and has
substantially accurate information.

The waste of resources is inherent to the adversarial process. It's in the
same nature as a war but fought with money and time rather than blood. It's
the same calculus: The fight is very rarely worth the cost but if you have no
soldiers you're a victim to someone who does.

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mooneater
this is ironic and timely because ive been somewhat seriously considering
leaving software for law, thank you

~~~
MWil
we need both. we need lawyers to become familiar with the system and develop
new technology. we need software engineers to get inside the system and
implement their own/others' improvements to the profession.

------
porter
I left banking to start and run a software business. I'd do it again in a
heartbeat.

