Posts made by Derp

@Macha said in The Art of Lawyering:

I am curious how the Lawyers feel about Jury consultants/Trial Science? (I know Bull is overblown and not what actually happens, but it made me curious)

See, the thing that you eventually learn is that all Social Science is really just behavioral psychology, with focus on certain aspects. Political Science, Economics. It's all behavioral psychology.

And we also learn that those statistics might seem bunk a lot of the time, but there is real truth in there. You have to go into this thing playing to win, and while most attorneys have pretty high ideals about facts and procedures and precedents, juries typically don't give a fuck about that, and judges can only be counted on to apply it when aware of it. Numerous (NUMEROUS) studies have been done about things like sentencing outcomes, and we've figured out that there are an incredible range of factors that determine different aspects, up to and including whether or not someone is hungry, or has to pee, or what color clothes someone is wearing.

You definitely want to go in mitigating as many factors against you as you possibly can.

@saosmash said in The Art of Lawyering:

I do think most lawyers are cynics. Even the idealistic ones.

I think that this is part nature, part training. When you learn to dissect things as closely as people do in the legal profession, you lose the line between 'examination' and 'cynicism'.

Also a surprising number of us that I have met have adult ADHD in some form.

Many people have told me that I display some tells on this one, but I've never gone to get tested. Most doctors here just think you're looking for cheaper meth. It would not at all surprise me though. Based on what I read about it, I resonate with that about 127%.

@Auspice

It's really not that crazy, actually. There are a goodly many states wherein you will never see that word in pretty much any book, and many of us didn't know it prior to 1993 or so. While it may be common in some school systems, it's far from universal, so her not understanding the word and needing to look it up later is understandable, especially in the era before google gave us crazy fast access to just about everything we wanted to know and had never heard of before (remember, the book is 1990).

@Coin said in CoD Ancient Rome game...:

Man, honestly, I really wish you would do custom courts for the game. The new edition is a lot more versatile and kind of built for that sort of customization; seems like a wasted opportunity.

So this game is dead but I just read this.

You can probably keep the traditional courts in a CoD game, but give them a new flavor and a new focus. So you could do stuff like:

Winter - Court of Persephone
Spring - Court of Demeter
Summer - Court of Athena
Fall - Court of Hekate

You know. In case anyone wanted ideas for future stuff.

@Rinel

IOLTA, for those playing along at home, is "Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts." That whole "stealing from the client" thing from earlier.

It's likely the most common reason anywhere.

@Rinel

Why you gotta be rebels, with your weird bar exam business and your parishes instead of counties?

@Ominous said in The Art of Lawyering:

Being a partner means your name is part of the firm. "Smith, Jackson, & Goldstein" for instance would indicate that the partners are attorneys whose last names are Smith, Jackson, and Goldstein.

This part is actually not universally true. Those are called 'name partners'. It's usually one of the name partners that acts as the managing partner, the ceo of the firm, so to speak. Then you have senior partners, who may or may not be bought into the firm, but do not have their name on the firm, and junior partners, the (usually) lowest tier of actual partner. Partnership is weird.

@nyctophiliac said in The Art of Lawyering:

Anyway, you ever seen in the movies where there's this firm of lawyers who are like "if you win this case we will make you a partner" -> Can someone explain that? Does that actually happen?

Rarely. I won't say that it never happens, but that's not the kind of thing that tends to make a good partner. One moment of brilliance or one high dollar case might be enough to get you to Junior Partner, but rarely Senior Partner without some kind of track record behind it, in which case they were already considering you for it well before that, and I can't think of a single instance where someone has made name partner because of a single case that wasn't like, national headlines scope.

What is the bar exam - it's like a licensing test right? Does it cost money to take? Does it last a certain length of time, are there strings attached? What can actually cause you to be disbarred (that's the term right?)? Could to retry the exam later if disbarred?

So the bar exam isn't one exam, it's usually 3.

Just to knock one out of the way, you have the MPRE (Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam), which is an ethics test, and it's the 'easiest' part of the process.

Then you have the MBE (Multistate Bar Exam), which consists of 200 questions over Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Evidence, Real Property and Torts. This is a six hour exam, broken up into two 3-hour segments, each consisting of 100 questions. (Louisiana does not use the MBE. I don't remember what they use, but it's not the MBE. @Rinel?)

Then, you have the state specific bar exams, which naturally differ by state and cover specific state topics.

Yes, each of these costs money to take, but the actual fee is usually not the largest chunk of it. The MBE is usually incorporated into state bar exams. Here, it's $250 (or $500 for late registration), and then an additional $125 for the MPRE (or $220 for late registration).

The prepatory courses are the real bitch of all this. Because law school, contrary to popular belief, doesn't actually teach you the law that you need to know. So you either have to self-study and hope to god that you get it all together, or drop about $5000 for something like BarBri / Themis / Kaplan to make sure you know enough of your shit that you can actually pass this exam.

Note that the bar exam. at least the MBE, is typically pass/fail. Scores are not reported to the people that take the bar, so you have no idea how well you did in any given area. On the MBE practice tests, it can tell you how well you did on a curve, but that isn't actually useful information either, because the percentile tells you how well you did compared to everyone else, not overall.

It's a fairly fucked up, grueling system that takes way too god damn much investment and should really be modified.

ETA: Re disbarment -- generally the thing that will get you disbarred is breaking one of the ethical requirements in a pretty egregious way, or committing a serious felony. Disbarment is typically 'permanent', as the same body that disbarred you in the first place would have to reinstate your privileges, either a bar association or a supreme court, depending on the state. One of the biggest ones is financial misconduct with a client, which will get the hammer brought down on your ass fast. You can't overbill, you can't mishandle money (funds are typically put in a trust and withdrawn as you can prove they are earned, and if you use them for anything else, even if replaced, you have technically stolen from a client.)

It's also state-specific, so in theory you could go practice in another state after being disbarred in one, but there is usually an ethical requirement to report or disclose previous disbarment.

ETA 2: Interesting sidenote -- what happens to the interest generated in attorney trust accounts is a hotly contested topic in the legal profession.

@Ganymede said in The Art of Lawyering:

@Tempest said in The Art of Lawyering:

Where are the PI lawyers?

You think that's where the money is? How droll.

The more mind-numbingly boring the work, the higher it pays.

Looking at you, fucking tax attorneys.

Oh wait, no. Looks like IP and Patents sits at the top of the food chain.

stares at one of the MSB attorneys that knows who they are, dammit

@Ghost said in The Art of Lawyering:

Let me know if you need that Bird Law gap filled, but I am also willing to work as a consultant for your Bird Law needs.

Are we talking environmental law or import/export law? Or are you just a master of all things bird related.

Also: Please submit your picture with your resume. If I'm paying you consultant fees in a non-existent law firm for a non-existent area of law, then I need to at least get some eye candy going on.*

*Non-existant law firm employs less than four people and is therefore not subject to EEOC or Indiana/Ohio guidelines on employment discrimination. Suck it.

ETA: Lol. Probably not the connotation I wanted to end that last sentence with. Oops. I should proofread these things. But you know I'm teasing anyway. I would totally hire you as a bird lawyer.

@nyctophiliac said in The Art of Lawyering:

Now I'm curious about the "lawyer reputation" you know - blood sucking, etc. Is it because the fees are so expensive or is it because people just didn't get the outcomes they wanted and are now bitter that they didn't get their way like an petulant child?

Yes, but the latter informs the former. Fees are expensive because lawyers go through some really intense training. You have to have an undergraduate degree of at least Bachelor's level in most places in the U.S., then take a brutal test to get in to law school (LSAT), take three or four years of classes to earn a doctoral degree in the law(J.D.), take an even more brutal test to get licensed to practice law (MBE/MPRE/etc.), and then, in some areas, take one or two years of post-doctoral education in order to practice in your specific area (LL.M.).

Lawyers are expensive because their time is extremely valuable. But also, people can be really petty and insist on doing things 'on principle', even though there is really nothing to gain from it. They just want a court to stroke their ego.

Well, guess what? It's going to cost you. Are you sure that this issue is so important that you're willing to pay a large fee to clog up the courts for what is probably no gain whatsoever?

It serves as a sort of gatekeeping function, really, and weeds out the ones that are really passionate from the ones that are just mildly irritated and will eventually move on because even they realize there is nothing to gain from this.

Why are judges elected in some places, but not in others? Which way is better in our modern times? I'm sure they both have pros and cons.

Because we love elections in the united states. We elect everyone. We elect dog catchers. Our love of elections and our love of lawsuits has literally been commented on since the founding of the country. Neither election nor appointment is perfect. I would prefer technocratic elections, wherein candidates must meet a baseline set of skills/education/experience in order to qualify and then voters can pick from this group of competent people.

@Auspice said in Arty stuff and Writey stuff:

'Vampires in SpAAaaAAAace'

This was a movie once. Particulary, Dracula in Space.

Let's not. Nooo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_3000

@faraday

I'm leaning toward a more traditional inventory system based on objects for a couple of reasons, really:

First -- while what I want to do could probably be done with a database, I'm not sure how to do it in a database, and it might be more complicated.

Second -- because the objects in some games provide a pretty complicated system of stat bonuses that I can at least get a grasp on with object parameters, and it lets me link it to a player-managed inventory system in a more direct way.

DnD, for example, has objects that provide stat bonuses, but only certain types of objects stack, and only one 'type' of object can be worn per object slot. I know that if I create an object, I can just give it specific parameters for those things:
name = "Circlet of Wizardly Mojo"
slot = head
bonus_type = "enhancement"
bonus = skill.raise(Spellcraft,2)
current_container = "Bag of Holding"
equipped? = false

Or whatever.

When another object is equipped, it'd be pretty straightforward to just code a method that wipes the existing bonus types and recalculates. I don't necessarily have to worry about stacking bonuses if I just have it run through a list and say 'if the bonus on this object is less than the current bonus, don't set it, otherwise set it'.

I wouldn't know how to begin doing that in a pure database system, and i"m not sure that it'd be as clean.

That said, I'm always open to being told I'm a big dummy and that there is a better way.

@Darren

Is your inventory system on Github? Would you be willing to share it? I've been thinking of starting one for my own game next, trying to tackle the ins and outs of design, and I'd love to see what you've done with yours.

@Ganymede -- You're about an hour drive from where I live, I think. Which is basically the same drive I make to get to work, just in the other direction. Doable.

@Auspice said in The Art of Lawyering:

homgwhatifsomeonewhoisn'tqualifiedandisjustgoodatself-marketinggetsin.

It's weird to me that you have to be an attorney to practice law, but not to be a judge.

So, I've been learning Ares, and looking at a couple of things:

Where you start really depends on how much prior knowledge you have.

If you have a good working knowledge of python, for instance, y ou can probably just pick up a ruby syntax guide and go from there.

If you've got a decent grasp of at least programming logic, you could start with something a bit more fast-paced. The Well-Grounded Rubyist I've found offers a decent speed and doesn't hand-hold you through every little thing about programming ever, presuming that you already know how most of this works and they just need to teach you how ruby applies to that basic framework.

@Ganymede ninja'd me!

@nyctophiliac said in The Art of Lawyering:

Jury System. Just why would anyone ever want to be tried by a court of their peers when the majority of our peers aren't all that smart - why not rely on a professional with experience? (Like a Judge!) Does this happen anywhere other than America? What do yall lawyers think about this?

The idea of a "jury of one's peers" actually goes back to old english law, wherein the power of the king to make arbitrary judgments was suspended when it came to certain members of the peerage. In order to pass judgment on them, they would have to be tried in a court before a jury consisting of other members of the peerage.

This, presumably, meant that you would get a fairer trial because it would be in their best interests to set precedents that protect themselves, and dispense justice on their own terms.

Now, it just means that everyone has to serve on a jury, which I think is a fucking terrible idea.

The Gavel. Talk to me about this. ORDER ORDER! BLAM BLAM! Is it just to punctuate that you mean business? What do yall lawyers think about this?

It originally was used to indicate that the terms of a judgment were decreed and passed (comes from 'gafel', meaning 'rent' or 'tribute'). The tiny hammer was used to clearly indicate this. It just sort of persisted and morphed.

Why did you choose the section of law (family, criminal, etc) that you chose? Or did it choose you?

The area I work in now I'm passionate about, but it sort of chose me. There's surely no money in it. If I were an actual attorney (note: I am not, yet) I would probably go where the money is. Tax law or something.

Bond and bail, what's the difference?

This depends on jurisdiction, but here 'bail' is usually a set amount that has to be paid in full before release, whereas a 'bond' is a fraction of the bail that serves as a surety that you will appear and make good on debts etc. Every jurisdiction has minor variations, and various laws regarding how bail bondsmen operate if you get the money from a third party, etc.

Why on earth did you choose to practice law to begin with? Was it the money or..?

Money was one consideration. I also think it's fun. And I'm halfway decent at it.

What is the most hilarious case you've worked on?

I don't know that any of them are hilarious. There are a bunch of crazy people though.

What is the saddest case you've worked on?

Pretty much any case involving child abuse. I worked for an agency that investigated this. So many stories, none of which I can talk about.

Criminal Justice Lawyer Types: What's the scariest person you've represented?

n/a

Would you ever represent someone that is guilty but they wanted you to get them off the hook? Would you lie for them? What's the furthest you'd go?

Attorneys very much strive to not know whether a client is a terrible person, but no, you cannot lie for them. Despite popular beliefs, there are very strict codes of ethics that the legal profession has to follow. Which is why we also get certain privilege and don't have to say shit unless compelled by a court.

Do you like arguing? How can you manage to keep your shit together when impassioned?

We're on MSB. So... yes. Clearly.

@Auspice said in Firefly - Still Flyin':

@Derp said in Firefly - Still Flyin':

I don't try, any more, to document every possible violation in some sort of legal codex because it's more trouble than it's worth and just invites people to try and lawyer.

The reason I recommend documenting is you don't want a situation where you warn J against a certain behavior, say if it happens again they're out... then have another Staffer come along, witness the behavior, and give a slap on the wrist. Because that can lead a player to think Staff isn't serious about warnings.

Does it need to be super detailed? Nah. But just a note to the rest of staff in an area future staffers can access (like a jobs board, a gdoc, w/e) of 'J has been warned not to creep-page. Ban on future offense.'

It protects, IMO, Staff AND players. Now, if you're gonna run a game solo forever? nbd. If you run it with someone (like I do with Paradox on SGM) that you trust and talk to regularly and have no plans to add extra staff? Again, nbd. But if you have it in your game that you might add more staff someday? It might be a good idea to plan for.

Additionally, because I feel like people are painting me as some naysayer trying to paint these guys as terrible: in one of my initial posts I pointed out that the concern was due to vague language and that it left the door open to some issues on all ends. Even you, Derp, are saying that you 'try to be clear about explicitly' what you're shooting for. That was all I was getting at and why I had a big concern over a very vague (in their initial policy writeup) 'we'll monitor RP on complaints.' Something more specific (I think a prev post by the staff said they won't monitor/observe TS for example) would assuage a lot of concerns on many peoples' parts.

I'm not saying that you're naysaying. I'm not even saying that you're wrong. It's just a different style, I think. One hard to describe.

Remind me tomorrow and I'll throw some more stuff in that Sample Policies thread out there somewhere and I will try to elaborate on what I mean when I say 'clear enough to get the idea across without necessarily going into a list of prima facie elements'. Just because I think it's easier.

FWIW, I do agree about documenting actions. Big fan of staff notes on player bits. Big fan.