I agree. The law authorizes only the attorney general to crack the whip, and limits that prosecutorial discretion with an blanket affirmative defense. Who wins here?
This is toothless. Without a private cause of action available to the consumer, prosecutorial discretion means offenses will go unpunished based on political winds.
Many of the issues raised by your comment are the result of civil procedural rules. These rules are not intentionally designed to postpone rulings on the merits, and instead were built on historical understandings of how a dispute should be fairly addressed: 1) communicate problem to adverse party 2) adverse party responds 3) fact-finding 4) written arguments aimed at resolution 5) trial by judge/peers (if necessary).
I don't believe that moving #4 (or even #5) earlier in the process maximizes the possibility of a logically/legally sound conclusion, which IMO, is the purpose of the justice system. Then again, your comment has identified speed as a priority, not a thorough examination of the merits.
If the procedural rules don't offend you, then we might just be talking about expensive lawyers. Not all lawyers are expensive.
>We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States.
I agree, but I think we can be more specific.
Criminals (or those accused of a crime) are constitutionally guaranteed an attorney. Civil plaintiffs/defendants, by contrast, have no such right. The anecdotes and experiences of HN users overwhelmingly describe the civil side of things.
Civil lawsuits, IMO, should carry no guarantee of counsel at the constitutional level. Imagine if they did: free lawyers mean frivolous lawsuits and over-burdened courts. But, I don't think anyone is actually clamoring for such an arrangement.
So, specifically, how can we more efficiently allocate limited legal resources to ensure that the average civil litigant is not disadvantaged by a wealth disparity with his opponent?
Well, what's the perceived disadvantage to a resource-poor litigant? What's the perceived advantage to a resource-rich litigant? Good facts make good cases much more frequently than good lawyers make good cases.
Note the paper's definition of medical error:
"Medical error has been defined as an unintended act (either of omission or commission) or one that does not achieve its intended outcome,3 the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended (an error of execution), the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (an error of planning),4 or a deviation from the process of care that may or may not cause harm to the patient."
This isn't a strong argument to me. Student debt might not be collateralized the same way mortgages are (i.e. there's no house to repossess), but student debt is still an asset on a bank's book. If anything, student debt default seems to me more troublesome, as defaulted debt without collateral is more damaging to a balance sheet than debt with collateral.
Most contracts provide for attorneys fees to be paid by the losing party. I much prefer the "pay your own way unless otherwise agreed" method to the English rule.
Beyond the contractual method of handling attorneys fees, civil procedure rules deal with this situation: if a settlement offer of X is rejected, and the rejecting party ultimately wins an award of X-1, then they have to pay all of your legal fees. [0]
This seems overly broad. Can you explain where you got this information, or in what context you think it applies? As an attorney with litigation experience, this is extremely puzzling.
All lawsuits are different, and simply being named as a defendant does not trigger any enormous payments beyond a lawyer's retainer. I suppose huge cases can call for such a retainer, but those surely are exceptional.
I don't think they're fictions insofar as lawyers (and laws) command a unique place in our society that other industry inputs don't. Insofar as lawyers have the ability and the incentive to prevent sweeping changes to their industry, the guild mentality seems very real to me.
I take your point though: smaller firms are very willing to make technology changes to find themselves new competitive advantages. Here's hoping smaller firms like yours (and mine) keep nipping away at those monstrous firms =D. FWIW, I have not had positive experiences when dealing with them...
Our firm automates document assembly software for wills, trusts, purchase agreements, residential leases, and court forms.
We do some litigation, but in our small town it typically doesn't require extensive electronic discovery or document analysis that this post talks about.