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>> The legal system is no joke, and if there weren't regulations about who can practice law, you'd have all kinds of fly-by-night people getting paid to do it while getting their clients thrown in jail

> That sort of highlights the problem. The legal system is supposed to be about ensuring fair and impartial justice. What the legal system is actually about is providing jobs for people in the legal system.

> Lawyers make laws, directly or indirectly, and thus the legal system has become insanely complicated and nearly impossible to navigate without paying the lawyer toll.

And software has become insanely complicated and nearly impossible to navigate without paying the software engineer toll.

Life is complicated, and so is the law. Maybe it's just harder to ensure "fair and impartial justice" than you think? I'm not saying the system is perfect, but railing against lawyers and getting rid of legal licensing is not the way to get to a better one.

> I've often said that if you really want to make a lawyer squirm, suggest that we have socialized law care. Most modern countries have some version of socialized or single payer health care, so why not make it the same for legal services?

You might have said that, but I doubt it would actually many real lawyers squirm any more than it would the idea of socialized software engineering would make developers squirm. And in any case, something like that already exists: the public defender's office.

>Maybe it's just harder to ensure "fair and impartial justice" than you think

I'll admit that's possible, but you have to also admit that the current legal system (at least in the US, I don't know about elsewhere) is, shall we say, over-engineered?

The software example you give cuts both ways. Yes, making even a simple Windows application can be very complicated. But how much of that is due to Windows itself? Can your application be replicated with a combination of existing Unix tools? Depends on the application, of course, but there is certainly a lot of cruft floating around the Windows API space.

And let's also not forget that (often) one of the main purposes of commercial software is to lock you in to that particular piece of software. Same same with the legal system and lawyers.

The jury system was supposed to cut through this sort of thing. Twelve regular folks could upend or ignore every law on the books if they thought the whole case was nonsense on stilts. A lot of work has gone into avoiding jury nullification for this reason.

> I'll admit that's possible, but you have to also admit that the current legal system (at least in the US, I don't know about elsewhere) is, shall we say, over-engineered?

I'm getting "nuke the legacy system without bothering to really understand what it does" vibes here.

> The jury system was supposed to cut through this sort of thing. Twelve regular folks could upend or ignore every law on the books if they thought the whole case was nonsense on stilts. A lot of work has gone into avoiding jury nullification for this reason.

Jury nullification is not an unalloyed good. It can (and has) gotten us to "he's innocent because he murdered a black man and the jury doesn't like blacks."

>I'm getting "nuke the legacy system without bothering to really understand what it does" vibes here

Not really. Are you suggesting that it isn't pretty difficult to navigate the legal system? Saying something is wonky and needs to be fixed does not automatically mean "Anarchy Now!"

My point was that I think I do understand what the system does, and what it does is (largely) provide lots of work for people in the legal system. You see this when buying a house. You end up writing a bunch of checks to companies and people and it's not clear exactly what actual necessary service they provide, but it's not like you can NOT do it. Their service is necessary because the real estate laws make it necessary.

In other industries we know this as regulatory capture. This is just regulatory capture of the regulatory system.

>Jury nullification is not an unalloyed good.

Nothing is an unalloyed good. To bolster your example, OJ got to walk as well. This is why there is an entire industry built up around just the jury selection process.

>> I'm getting "nuke the legacy system without bothering to really understand what it does" vibes here

> Not really. Are you suggesting that it isn't pretty difficult to navigate the legal system? Saying something is wonky and needs to be fixed does not automatically mean "Anarchy Now!"

No, I'm suggesting that complexity may often have good reason. Without specific reform proposals, what you're saying registers similarly to "coding in programming languages is hard, so simplify it by coding in natural language!"

> You see this when buying a house. You end up writing a bunch of checks to companies and people and it's not clear exactly what actual necessary service they provide, but it's not like you can NOT do it. Their service is necessary because the real estate laws make it necessary.

Being ignorant of the value of a service doesn't make that service unnecessary. And honestly, I bet you could "NOT do it" -- if you could pay cash for the property. IIRC, a lot of that is actually required by whoever you get your mortgage from, because they know the value of it.

>Without specific reform proposals

I think requiring me to write a policy paper in HN comments is a bit onerous. In any event, I can't much help if my mild criticism is interpreted on your part as something deeply nefarious.

>Being ignorant of the value of a service doesn't make that service unnecessary.

The fact that a service exists does not make that service necessary. Or do you always buy the protection plan from Office Depot when you purchase a stapler? Anyway, I agree that the mortgage companies find great value in all of their various fees.

> the current legal system…is…over-engineered

There are simultaneously arguments in this thread that the American legal system is insufficiently arcane and code-like, for what it’s worth.

> I'll admit that's possible, but you have to also admit that the current legal system (at least in the US, I don't know about elsewhere) is, shall we say, over-engineered)

Huge Elon Musk rewrite the code from scratch vibes coming from you

That’s not why we have a jury system.

> And software has become insanely complicated and nearly impossible to navigate without paying the software engineer toll.

Is this somehow bad? The most complicated software, by far, is proprietary software made by large companies, like Google, that are taking the penalty of increased complexity on their end in exchange for (somewhat) happy customers - and guess what? Their developers are paid boatloads of money, so they're getting a decent deal.

Meanwhile, many open-source software systems have managed to keep their complexity somewhat in check (at the expense of functionality).

Software is complex when developers make it complex, and users rarely have to care anyway.

> Life is complicated, and so is the law.

That doesn't follow. Life is complicated, and so is software? No, software is complicated in some cases because of business reasons, and in other cases because of poor design.

Furthermore, there's two massive differences between the two:

First, you're not legally required to use Gmail, but you are legally required to understand and follow the tax code - everyone is, unlike the vast majority of software, where you can pick and choose. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is factually true - therefore, the law has to be understandable to the vast majority of the population (not just the average - the law has to be understandable to those who failed out of high school and have an IQ below 80).

Second, code is an implementation detail that the vast majority of people don't have to interact with, but people do have to interact with the law directly, which means that a comparison between code and law is apples-to-oranges - the correct comparison is software interface to law, and virtually everyone you meet will tell you that it's easier to use Gmail than to understand the IRS tax code when reading it directly.

The evidence just keeps piling up that the legal system is overly complex.

We do have "socialized law care" for criminal cases in the USA. That's what a public defender is. If you cannot afford a lawyer one will be provided by the court. That is a constitutional right.

Of course they are overworked, have insane case loads, and the best attorneys are disincentivized from becoming public defenders. The system definitely needs an overhaul.

But the concept that justice should in theory be available even if you can't afford it is well established.

> I've often said that if you really want to make a lawyer squirm, suggest that we have socialized law care. Most modern countries have some version of socialized or single payer health care, so why not make it the same for legal services?

We do have socialized law in the US, in the form of public defenders.

> Why should rich people get access to better legal service than regular people?

Oh, is “better” what you’re talking about, not just access? This is different than what the first half of your paragraph implied. The answer, of course, is money. And rich people in all the “modern countries” you’re referring to always have access to “better” than what’s provided by all social services. Always. Unfortunate, but true, that money makes life unequal.

>Oh, is “better” what you’re talking about, not just access?

Public defenders are overworked and underpaid, and you know that. It's like having a RPN do your appendectomy. Fair and equal justice would have every lawyer be a public defender. It's not like if you go to the hospital you get to pick which doctor sews your finger back on after the bandsaw accident.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but once you bring it into the conversation it makes both lawyers and socialized medicine advocates get a little uncomfortable.

As a lawyer, I agree. Much of the trope of 'the lawyers always win' has a lot of truth to it, believe it or not. And all of the incentives align in this direction, it keeps the legal profession fat and happy and beholden to monied interests while suppressing access to the non-wealthy. And the rich don't actually care that they're being constantly fleeced, because it's just a cost of doing business that is really pretty finite in comparison to profits that can be made. It's almost like it's a feature of 'the system' (combination of capitalism and common law) and not an unintended side effect.

>That sort of highlights the problem. The legal system is supposed to be about ensuring fair and impartial justice. What the legal system is actually about is providing jobs for people in the legal system.

umm, how are you going to disbar your AI attorney? I'm so tired of this narrative you are crafting. You put the cart before the horse, and then you pat yourself on the back for slapping the horse ass!

>> Lawyers make laws, directly or indirectly

Really? In every country I've live in, politicians write laws, judges set precedents, and lawyers only get to make arguments. True, the first two are often & always former lawyers, but that seems as reasonable as how doctors get to determine best medical practice.

> True, the first two are often & always former lawyers

You answered your own "Really?" question.

And doctors don't determine best medical practices. Lawyers also do that, albeit indirectly through malpractice lawsuits. Thus the "best medical practices" are all CYA maneuvers.

I think you are thinking the legal system simple and it is basically a jobs program for lawyers. I think that is a very simplistic and unrealistic notion of the legal system. I also don’t think many lawyers are squirming about socialism or whatever.