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Comment by rsynnott | Hacker News Reader

What is it with the American far-right and hiring the most _incompetent possible lawyers_? Like, between this and Giuliani...

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Think about the quality of lawyer who would take Lindell as a client.

He’s a bankrupt, likely mentally ill acolyte of a dude who is infamous for stiffing his lawyers. His connection with reality is tenuous at best.

Our justice system prides itself on giving everyone due process and a fair trial, even people you hate

This guy is getting exactly the kind of lawyers he deserves, and it’s nobody’s fault but his own

This is an appeal for a civil suit he lost.

I don't think anyone claimed he doesn't deserve due process. The only people I know of arguing against due process lately are in fact those in the Whitehouse.

This. As a junior lawyer at a large law firm, one of my jobs was checking every cited case to confirm that it was cited correctly, that it actually supported the theory that it was being used to support, and that it hadn't been overturned or qualified by subsequent case law. It's a process called Shepardizing that every law student does. So I can't fathom how fictitious cases could possibly be included in a brief. Also, just slightly mischaracterizing a case in a brief could be cause for being sanctioned. So I don't see how this type of issue would not undoubtedly result in sanctions.

One of the defining characteristics of this crop of alt-right, populist nutters is disdain for experts. Doesn't work so well when they need legal or medical advice.

There's a quote I can't find right now about how fascism is associated with lower competence because it not only prioritizes but demands loyalty over all else and you get a bench made up of just the best asskissers, ideologues, extremists.

Because competent lawyers tend to adhere to professional standards and codes of ethics, which makes them more selective in the work and clients they take on.

Some of the prominent people on the right have tried to ignore the law, to not let the law modify their behavior, fighting off lawsuit after lawsuit, and adverse ruling after adverse ruling. If you're going to do that, you have to file a lot of motions. That seems to drive an emphasis on volume rather than quality of motions in reply. At least, that's my perspective as an outside observer.

The problem is that Trump, Musk, Lindell, etc are all extremely arrogant and constantly disregard sound legal advice. Their lawyers aren't merely associated with a controversial client; their professional reputation is put at risk because they might lose easily winnable cases due to a client's dumb tweet. You have to be a crappy lawyer (or an unethical enforcer like Alex Spiro and Roy Cohn) to even want to work with them.

>The problem is that Trump, Musk, Lindell, etc are all extremely arrogant and constantly disregard sound legal advice. Their lawyers aren't merely associated with a controversial client; their professional reputation is put at risk because they might lose easily winnable cases due to a client's dumb tweet.

Bingo. This has nothing to do with ideology. Good lawyers like to win. And when a client is demonstrably too stupid to let them do that, why bother.

Being stupid and controversial is now a popular ideological option.

If their goal is to hire people who believe in their cause, their hands are tied

It's not like there are many lawyers left who are willing to represent them. Either because they have behaved so utterly vile like Alex Jones, the case is so clear cut due to their own behavior that there is zero chance of achieving more than a token reduction in sentence (while risking the ire of the clueless fanbase for a "bad defense job") like in this case, or because they have a history of not paying their bills like Trump.

That leaves only those as lawyers who already have zero reputation left to lose, want to make a name for themselves in the far-right scene, who are members of the cult as well, and those who think they can milk an already dead/insolvent horse.

These are often also simply hard clients.

Jones is a good example of this. He cycled through about 20 different lawyers during the sandyhook trials. The reason he was defaulted is because when he was required to produce something, he fire the lawyers (or they'd quit), hire new ones, and invariably in the depositions an answer to "did you bring this document the court mandated that you produce" the answer was "oh, sorry, I'm brand new to this case and didn't know anything about that".

Jones wasn't cooperating with his lawyers.

There are plenty of good lawyers that have no problem representing far right figures. The issue really comes down to those figures being willing to follow their lawyer's advice.

The really bad lawyers simply don't care if their clients ignore their advice.

Don't forget lawyers who are worried their clients will ask them to do something illegal and don't want to be involved with that, even to reject it.

They think everyone is doing it and not getting caught.

Everything the right accuses anyone of, they're doing it too. That's why they don't really care about criminals and pedophiles and racists in their ranks. They think everyone is a child diddling criminal racist.

Selection bias on your part. There's plenty of incompetence (and outright fraud) on the other side as well.

Rememebr Michael Avenatti?

I wonder what the effects of an echo chamber in a forum like this would be.. maybe something similar to what Reddit has become

You couldn't criticize Musk here a few years ago without the fanboys dog-piling. Same for Apple before their more recent stumbles.

This seems like both-sidesism at its worst. Michael Avenatti is one man, and he represented Stormy Daniels, who is hardly a significant figure on the left compared to Rudy Giuliani or Mike Lindell. I don't see Democrat-leaning CEOs (e.g. Howard Schultz) hiring lawyers like this. And Trump's lawyers are far worse than Biden's!

is Stormy Daniels the far left?

I don’t think she actually has a known political affiliation.

See, the logic is that Stormy Daniels caused Dear Leader trouble, anyone who gets in Dear Leader's way or causes him trouble is Radical Left, therefore Stormy Daniels is Radical Left.

The attorney for porn actress who had an affair with a political candidate who embezzled funds to pay her off does have a certain similarity or common nexus to an attorney for key member of the presidential whack pack.

I don’t think that nexus is political, for either party. It’s all tied to one man.

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