Comment by tablespoon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tablespoon | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Some students might feel that some points should not be up for argument and therefore that they should not bear the responsibility of arguing them (or even hearing arguments about them), but however appealing that position might be in some other context, it is incompatible with the training that must be delivered in a law school. Law students are entering a profession in which their job is to make arguments on behalf of clients whose very lives may depend on their professional skill.

Also, isn't it also an area where professional and ethical obligations require you to be able to make the strongest possible arguments that you're capable of on behalf of your client... even if you personally find your client to be extremely distasteful. Lawyers literally need to be able to play devil's advocate, so I think it would be perfectly reasonable to not only require lawyers-in-training to be exposed to ideas opposing things they feel "should not be up for argument," but even argue against those things themselves as an exercise.

MRPC 1.16(b)(4)-(7)

According to the model rule, at least, the lawyer may withdraw from representation when faced with a disagreeable or repugnant client, one who doesn’t pay, one which presents the lawyer with an unreasonable financial burden, or where other good cause exists.

(And this is /withdrawal/, let alone the fact that if a non-client you don’t want comes into your office you have every right to ask him to leave.

I suppose some judge could try to cram a client (an indigent criminal suspect maybe?) down your throat under 1.16(c). But I would reckon that the general rule is that NLG members wouldn’t have to represent fedsoc members if they didn’t want to.

You might be thinkin of 6.2 cmt. 1 which suggests that like John Adams’ defense of British soldiers, lawyers might find it to be a valuable contribution to our adversarial system if they sometimes stake not an unsavory client. No requirement to do so, though.

Students should be skilled in the meta-theory of law as well as legal critique to know the limits of legalism.

What the administration is attempting to do is monopolize the framing of the issue as a legal one. Frame monopolization is inherently an authoritarian practice and unbecoming of a prestigious higher institution.

> What the administration is attempting to do is monopolize the framing of the issue as a legal one. Frame monopolization is inherently an authoritarian practice and unbecoming of a prestigious higher institution.

What do you mean? It's a law school, so it seems perfectly reasonable and not authoritarian that these issues should be framed by the organization's primary purpose.

And frankly the quoted statement less "frame monopolization" than a rejection of an even more stringent kind of authoritarian ideological "frame monopolization."

It's not "monopolizing" the "frame" for a person to take a position and argue for it. And it's certainly not authoritarian.

In any debate, it is expected that each side will argue their own position and not the counter-position. If you disagree with the administration that the issue is a legal one, then that becomes a new point that one may debate.

Right, I'm point out that framing it as a debate is itself up for dispute.

So to be clear: your position is that there is no legal issue here, and that the SLS Dean is utilizing authoritarian tactics when he says it is a legal issue?

What I'm saying is that there is no reason to give a legal framing primacy. What I'm getting back in response is, "There is one true way to frame this and it is legal." It's great that people think that, but I'm simply not going to accept that without justification.

It's the difference between fighting a fair match in an arena and having a conversation about what arena or if an arena at all is even the right way to think about this. I simply won't accept without justification that a legal framing is legitimate without a case being made beyond, "well, it's the best we have, or if you have something better, say it." Those responses always display a failure of creative imagination.

FWIW I have no problem with any of that. Sure, the legal framing might be wrong.

What I took offense at was calling a point of debate an "authoritarian" tactic.

Wait, you left out "weaponize." Isn't that the usual term the mob resorts to whenever a principle is cited against them?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com