legal

Private or public?

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Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.

Plato

Today I’m not gonna talk about theoretical differences between private and public law, I’m want to talk about what are differences between lawyers who work in either of these areas. For example, what qualities and morals, apart from the usual, should be present in these people.

In my mind main difference between private or public work lays in how much power legal worker actually have. Someone who specialises in public law, is working between borders set by law, which precisely says what is allowed and what is not. In private law, lawyers have as much power as law and their imagination allows. In a nutshell, there are more possible resolutions in private law. But what kind of lawyer is suitable for each of these areas?

Even though I believe that in real life setting it wouldn’t matter, I think some lawyers are more suited for certain jobs than others. Someone who is used to sticking by the books and following clear trace of facts, probably would feel more comfortable working in public sector. On the other hand, someone who likes taking risks and thinks outside of the box, would feel better working in private sector, which allows them to prove themselves.

The way I put it, seems like I’m saying that public sector relies on knowledge, while private sector – on creativity. Which kinda brings me to my point, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether someone work in public or private sector, both of these specialisations need lawyers who are experts in law and at the same time, can get creative if needed. Probably though, our individual character and aspirations are what makes us lean towards one specialisation over another.

Bottom line is, no matter what you choose to do and what kind of lawyer you want to be, don’t forget that knowledge and ability to think outside of the box, are necessary skills to have.

/M.P./

Your ideal lawyer

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Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

So, this post comes a week and two days late. I’m sorry, but I had some private matters to deal with. On this note I wanna talk about character, character of a lawyer. From perspective of everyday folks. How does image of successful lawyer look to someone who haven’t used any kind of legal services? What is image of ideal lawyer in minds of potential clients?

We as humans tend to have certain types of images of all kind of stuff. That’s why stereotypes exist, that’s why we think that all politicians are corrupt or that you can achieve success without connections. Of course, sometimes we are imagining truth, but sometimes (and I would say most of the time) product of our imagination is just that – false image. 

While I was thinking of studying either law or business management, I often heard from my family members that I’m not aggressive enough, I’m not loud enough and so on, to study any of these things. They mostly worried about my career prospects, we don’t have connections, we don’t have money, I’m introvert of introverts, how could a person like that find job after graduating. But here I am, graduated, with job in my chosen field, how could I do that if I’m not that charismatic lawyer, everyone think of when they hear a word – lawyer?

Answer to that is very simple, it was never me. It was false image in my mom’s mind about what she thinks is an successful lawyer. And most people, friends of family, who have expressed their concerns have also said that I do not look like lawyer. Because to them, ideal lawyer is someone who is charismatic, extroverted, outspoken, is not afraid to speak their mind. Sometimes, that is how lawyer should be, but I think, that people often confuse charisma with knowledge. Because, if someone speaks with so much confidence, they can say almost everything, it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. People register the way something is said, not what is said. 

I would advise people, to  re-imagine their ideal lawyers as not some Harvey Specter look alikes, oozing with confidence and charisma (which are good traits to have, don’t get me wrong), but as people who they can trust, they can confide in. Re-imagine them as lawyers who are knowledgeable in their practise areas, someone who is not afraid to show weaknesses, someone who is gonna do their best to help them. That would be my ideal lawyer, someone who is just like me – a person.

/M.P./

Delay, delay, delay

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Before we start:

  • I’m changing my publishing schedule from twice a week to once a week;
  • New posts will be published every Wednesday.

Now back to your regurarly scheduled programming, that comes with appropriate title.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Albert Einstein

Today I’m gonna talk about one thing that might stop moving – the trial. Small disclaimer, in my country trial delays are possible and in big criminal trials very common. I do understand that in different legal systems and/ or countries this problem might not exist, but in my small European country, laws against trial delays are not very effective.

So, how delaying the trial works. Actually it’s very simple, just use all legal means possible. Most often, trial delays happen in criminal cases. Where most of the time, defense tries to delay trial as much as possible, even for several years.

Reason why this works is because criminal trials, especially big ones, take longer time just by themselves. And now imagine lawyers sick leave, new lawyer coming in, now defendant’s in hospital and other reasons why trial can’t happen, stacked on top of already lenghty process. Nightmare, if I say so myself. Nightmare for all involved sides.

But I’m not gonna look into how and why law’s “allow” this. I want to try to find how lawyers can influence this process and what does it mean. On the one hand, it’s absolutely possible that something happens and trial can’t continue at the moment, and that’s fine. But if “something” happens all the time, seems suspicious to me. In my opinion, deliberately delaying trial in criminal case means only one thing – admiting to crime. Otherwise, wouldn’t you want this to be over faster?

On the other hand, there are so much people involved to make this happen, most inportantly lawyer. Of course, what happens between lawyer and client stays hidden, but if client wants trial delayed lawyer doesn’t have many options. One, stop working with this client. Two, trying to convince client that it isn’t best game plan. Three, go with it. Sad thing is, it is not easy to suddenly stop working with client, especially if you have worked with them for some time, nor to convince someone who’s life is on the line.

My point is, it all starts with the lawyer. Not the legal system, not the law, but the lawyer. Because, as long as we are gonna be fine with our clients malicious wishes, we won’t be staying true to our jobs nature. To end this post, I wish for everyone to do only things they believe are true and things they are not ashamed of doing.

/M.P./

Legal battles or revange tactic

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Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.

Charles Dickens

Previously, I mentioned how legal battles are the worst and how emotionally draining they can be. Now, I want to look at how the same legal battles can be used, not because they are the only option left to resolve a dispute, but because someone is using them out of spite.

What does it take to involve yourself in lawsuit? Firstly, money. It is well known that lawsuits are not cheap. Expenses include paying a lawyer, court expenses and other unexpected costs. Secondly, emotional investment. People have to prepare themselves emotionally for lawsuits. They have to become calm and collected in situations that probably makes them feel anything but that. Thirdly, time. One of the most important investments in lawsuit is time. Legal battles can end in few weeks or can take up to several years to end.

And time aspect is useful for someone who doesn’t care about emotions and money, but just wants to make someones life difficult. When it comes to this, it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong. Lawsuits are being used as revange tactic a lot in disputes that are with emotional roots. Which means that these types of legal battles can become big investment of time, emotions and money.

Disclaimer: I do know that this might not be true in some countries or legal systems, but where I come from lawsuits can be dragged out pretty easily and there is not much laws against it.

What is lawyers role in all of this? I believe, it comes down to personal work ethic and morales. However, I believe lawyers should not indulge into these situations. They should be able to foresee when lawsuit might be used for the wrong reasons and try to convince their client to use more appropriate option. But in the end everything that matters are trust between client and a lawyer.

As long as we, lawyers, will try to do our best according to our beliefs, we will do what’s best for our clients and case as whole.

/M.P./

How much lie is acceptable?

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When people tell a lie about something, they have to make up a bunch of lies to go with the first one. “Mythomania” is the word for it.

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Can lawyers work without lying? Can you find truth in court? I don’t trust lawyers, they won’t listen to me.” I have heard these and other similar assumptions about what it takes to be a successful lawyer. I have met people who are afraid to seek lawyers help, because they believe that their truth will be denied by lies. Can lawyers work without lying?

And I have to assure people that it is not like that. Yes, of course there are some bad apples amongst lawyers too, just like any other field, but finding them are hard. Most lawyers do take their job very seriously and don’t get mixed up in shady cases. Because job is a job, whether lawyers have to defend vicious criminal or big company, or single mother, they are gonna try their best in any given situation.

But from where comes this stereotype that lawyer = liar? Let’s start by answering my question – how much lie is acceptable. I would say that lie is not acceptable at all, but not saying everything is. Where’s the difference?

Lies are false statements and any kind of legal work should be kept separate from lies, but at the same time you can’t put all cards on the table. Difference is in the fact that not saying everything is not lying. However, you have to be careful with this, because it’s so easy to run into problems by withholding information related to a case. Not turning simple information into lies is a hot hot potato to handle, but by practice it becomes easier to deal with.

Let’s end this with one statement, don’t turn doing what is best for your client into your own problems.

/M.P./

Legal battles are the worst

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The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Sun Tzu in The Art of War a few times talks about  winning without battle or winning before battle. I would say that in legal world, every dispute between persons and/or state is a battle. But these battles can develop at different stages.

First stage – reason for disagreement. Smaller or bigger battle, emotional, or in worst case scenario physical,  starts in the moment when two (or more) sides find themselves on opposite sides of the fence. Reason, no matter what it is, acts as a catalyst for dispute.

Second stage – materialising the argument. Obviously there can be many ways how to bring argument to life, but let’s look at legal ways. For example, mediation, settlement, court, doesn’t matter. Every path that is chosen will include emotional tension, arguments or more.

Third stage – escalation. Despite the way how to go on about this fight, sooner or later it’s gonna reach its end phase. Before ending though, opposing sides are going to try everything they can, to resolve the dispute with their best interests in mind. Which makes course of this dispute unpredictable. It can end there and then, or get dragged on and on.

Fourth stage – finish. Last phase of every fight means resolution. This stage heavily depends on two factors, chosen strategy and borders. By borders I mean, how far is each side ready to go for this fight to come to an end. How far is their border?

But why legal battles are the worst? Because, no matter how hard we, as lawyers, try, we can’t influence our clients wishes. We can only try to explain why one way might be better than other. Also, even though lawyers daily fight smaller or bigger legal battles, the ones with someones life out in the open are terrible. Why? To answer this question, let’s look at our reasoning for choosing law. For someone to fight injustice, for someone to bring peace or to get rich, to resolve family problems etc. But I don’t believe we can fully achieve our goals, because in the end we work for others. Which means we have to put aside our dreams and convert our ambitions into helping someone else. So why personal legal fights are terrible? Because lawyers must learn to use their personal energy for someone else, without becoming personally involved.

In the end, legal battles are not the worst worst, but they are pretty bad. Due the fact that we give up our skills to resolve somebody’s personal problems. Legal battles are emotionally, physically damaging even if we don’t feel it. They take our personal time away, but in the end we feel satisfied and happy with our work (at least we should feel like that). Because we are like doctors, but not for persons health, but for persons decisions. While doctors fix health, lawyers fix decisions.  

/M.P./

Is law just?

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See, a just world is a sane world.

HBO Chernobyl, episode 1 (1:23:45)

When I looked in dictionary for definition of the term “just”, I saw different definitions or synonyms for the term. For example, reasonable, proper, righteous, lawful et al. So is law all these things? My answer ir kinda straightforward – no, and it’s not supposed to be.

In my mind, law is meant to control and regulate society. Of course, regulations should not be used as a way to oppress people, but laws should not always side with people, too. In the end, laws should come from people to people. For it to happen, society should be the one to control the law, that’s why we have institutions and organizations, that oversee law application process. Because when only one person or group is in charge of overseeing things, those things are actually controlled by their subjective views and personal interests.

For example, even holocaust or mass deportations in Soviet Union, were legal at the time. Now we look at these events as horrendous and inhuman, but then again – they were legal. This is what happens with the use of law, when one person or group makes them. If we take just law as righteous law, then did all the terrible events during history were just? No, they weren’t, but they were legal decisions.

Every person judges things subjectively, that’s why law can never be just. Because, one right thing for one individual, is one wrong thing for other individual. This is the reason why law can’t never be just, it can only try to be objective for the situation, without being over the top.

Emotions as a foundation…

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Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Emotions are a big part of our everyday lives. I would say – emotions are our life. The good, the bad and the ugly emotions showcase our abilities to process life. Inevitably, emotions are gonna be present in legal world. Because of this, I would like to look at emotions as a foundation for legal disputes.

What is an dispute? According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, dispute (noun) is a verbal controversy. Personally, I think emotions are main reason for every dispute, ever. But this time I’m gonna look at their influence over legal disputes.

Firstly, let’s imagine wife and husband who are going through divorce. Obviously, it is an emotionally draining process, especially if it concerns children or dividing property. But the moment this couple involves in their argument any sort of legal professional help, this family matter becomes legal dispute. Now reason for this (legal) problem is not law or its application process, but strong feelings felt by all involved parties.

Secondly, even though this example illustrated emotion involvement in civil case, I would argue that in criminal, administrative cases and every other case type, reasoning for disagreement between parties lies not in the way how law regulates specific situation, but how people react to these regulations.

While law is a way how state makes social norms into legal norms, it can’t regulate our feelings. Which, in my opinion, makes emotions more regulative than law. It makes me think that, person can live under unjust legal regulations while these regulations doesn’t have negative impact on their emotional side, but person will not be able to live under just regulations if these regulations negatively impact their emotional state.

Feel free to disagree with previous statement, but I think no one can deny the fact that emotions play big role in the way how we look at things, no matter how objective they are supposed to be.

/M. P./