Hacker News Reader

Comment by PhasmaFelis | Hacker News Reader

It seems a bit naive, then, to assume that the people you're litigating against will civilly keep their anger in Lawyer-Land and never hold a grudge in real life.

View on HN

I talked to an Oracle lawyer a few months ago, and told him their lawsuit just makes Oracle look bad. The lawyer was dismissive, and tried to explain how it's silly how people take lawsuits personally, and talked about how layers _understand_ that lawsuits aren't personal, and that they are still friends outside the court.

I'm sure a lawyer can "understand" how lawsuits aren't actually something personal at all, but lawyers really seem to be the _only_ people who "understand" that.

-- Linus Torvalds [0]

[0] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/...

> “The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.”

― Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

Yup, I've had to do that. I've basically not given in, and have slowly but surely ground down the people who should have been investigating and dealing with my issues. I'll succeed from sheer bloody mindedness.

I love all the Quellcrist Falconer quotes from that book. IIRC, it was a Quellcrist Falconer line in someone's sig that got me to pick it up.

"When they ask how I died, tell them: still angry."

There seems to be a lot of that at play in white-shoe firms. Perhaps less so now than when those positions were guaranteed for life, but some of the highest-powered lawyers I've known didn't have much intuitive sense that they were actually affecting people.

There's a fundamental misunderstanding of reality in legal profession. It is somewhat akin to 18th and 19th century conflicts - two armies line up against each other and both sides shoot. Strangely even though the last man standing won the decorum mattered. That is until someone had a brilliant idea to shoot from the laying down position. Or from the bushes. Or without wearing uniforms.

In the Napoleonic wars Wellingtons order for troops to wait lying down on a reverse slope to avoid cannon fire was considered unsporting

Up until about the US civil war guns were inaccurate enough that you could stand in lines and shoot at each other with a chance to live. As such the old battle lines designed for swords were not a horrible strategy (not to be confused with good). By the US civil war rifles advanced to the point where you could shoot a target and have confidence that it would die.

Wars that happened around the US civil war were suddenly and unexpected deadly which caused all generals (who watch wars between insignificant countries which the US was at the time) to be horrified and come up with new tactics without regard for previous ideas of what was sporting.

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of 18th and 19th century infantry tactics to say that they fought that way out of a sense of decorum and that no one had the idea of using concealment or cover.

They fought in massed formations because it actually was the most effective way of fighting with the technology of the time. Infantry troops that strayed too far from their formations were extremely vulnerable to attack by more mobile cavalry troops. It was only in massed formations that they were able to effectively repel cavalry attacks.

Oh rubbish.

See Napoleon's excursion into Russia. See Suvorov's crossing of the Alps.

Not seeing how either of those instances disprove my point.

I now have a question about the original account: did the lawyers / legal firm in question:

1. still represent their client (the vegan protestors) with the same utmost care that one would expect in hiring any legal team?

2. politely close the contractual obligation to represent and refund some or all of their fees?

3. just did a poor job of representation after this incident , but still bill the same hours and other fees?

Edited to correct formatting

(2) was the closest. Law firms demanded the retainer payment which vegans did not have so the lawyers withdrew.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com