Which comes first Laws or Lawyers
-
So @scottalanmiller and I were having a side-bar conversation from some thread here (drawing a blank at the moment) about how English law is terrible and it quickly devolved into a which came first argument.
Scott's stance is that politicians exist and create laws and lawyers.
My stance is you need capable people to argue over an issue and draft law (who then become politicians and lawyers)
Which came first, laws or lawyers?
-
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
So @scottalanmiller and I were having a side-bar conversation from some thread here (drawing a blank at the moment) about how English law is terrible and it quickly devolved into a which came first argument.
Scott's stance is that politicians exist and create laws and lawyers.
My stance is you need capable people to argue over an issue and draft law (who then become politicians and lawyers)
Which came first, laws or lawyers?
It really sounds, at least from you explanation here, that you both agree that politicians came first.
-
Scott stance is that you have to have politicians to create law, my stance is you have to have lawyers to create law who then become politicians.
His rational (probably best explained by him) is that society needs to have laws in which to live by, which law is created by government, not by lawyers.
My argument is that you need to have lawyers (or sudo-lawyers) to create government to then create laws and politicians.
-
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
Scott stance is that you have to have politicians to create law, my stance is you have to have lawyers to create law who then become politicians.
His rational (probably best explained by him) is that society needs to have laws in which to live by, which law is created by government, not by lawyers.
My argument is that you need to have lawyers (or sudo-lawyers) to create government to then create laws and politicians.
You are both arguing the same point from an outsiders point of view. Sudo-lawyers that make laws are called politicians.
-
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
Which came first, laws or lawyers?
Generally Controlled chaos,.. utter chaos then TEOTWAWKI
-
@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
You are both arguing the same point from an outsiders point of view. Sudo-lawyers that make laws are called politicians.
Lawyers read laws, they cannot create them. By definition a lawyer is someone who studies existing laws. The government that makes laws are not lawyers.
-
Since a lawyer must study law to be a lawyer, until there are laws, the entire concept of a lawyer is moot. Laws can exist without lawyers, but lawyers cannot exist without laws.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
Since a lawyer must study law to be a lawyer, until there are laws, the entire concept of a lawyer is moot. Laws can exist without lawyers, but lawyers cannot exist without laws.
But laws cannot exist without people who create laws. And since lawyers study law, laws are made by lawyers who have the hat of "politician".
-
@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
You are both arguing the same point from an outsiders point of view. Sudo-lawyers that make laws are called politicians.
Lawyers read laws, they cannot create them. By definition a lawyer is someone who studies existing laws. The government that makes laws are not lawyers.
Isn't that what @DustinB3403 is arguing? That pseudo-lawyers make laws and are there for politicians?
Realistically we know that lawyers came after laws. Even historically we know that there were tribal laws that were enforced long before we had people to argue about them.
-
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
Since a lawyer must study law to be a lawyer, until there are laws, the entire concept of a lawyer is moot. Laws can exist without lawyers, but lawyers cannot exist without laws.
But laws cannot exist without people who create laws. And since lawyers study law, laws are made by lawyers who have the hat of "politician".
But not all politicians are lawyers. They could be B-movie actors or a former jazz musician.
-
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
Since a lawyer must study law to be a lawyer, until there are laws, the entire concept of a lawyer is moot. Laws can exist without lawyers, but lawyers cannot exist without laws.
But laws cannot exist without people who create laws. And since lawyers study law, laws are made by lawyers who have the hat of "politician".
No, there is no law to study before it is created. You are rebranding anything that you want into lawyer. But that's not a lawyer. Lawyers cannot make laws, period. You can't just call someone who isn't a lawyer a lawyer to make the point. Obviously people make laws, people who are not lawyers.
-
@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
You are both arguing the same point from an outsiders point of view. Sudo-lawyers that make laws are called politicians.
Lawyers read laws, they cannot create them. By definition a lawyer is someone who studies existing laws. The government that makes laws are not lawyers.
Isn't that what @DustinB3403 is arguing? That pseudo-lawyers make laws and are there for politicians?
Realistically we know that lawyers came after laws. Even historically we know that there were tribal laws that were enforced long before we had people to argue about them.
No, he's arguing that anyone who makes a law IS a lawyer, which is not at all what the term lawyer means. Creating a law and studying the law that was created are discrete things.
-
@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
Realistically we know that lawyers came after laws. Even historically we know that there were tribal laws that were enforced long before we had people to argue about them.
Exactly. it's not chicken and egg at all. One can easily exist without the other.
-
But the other cannot exist until the other is established. It's a very one way relationship.
-
Lawyers were not needed until two guys said "Let's write this down" and couldn't agree on some of it. So they brought in a third party, and said "Tell us what you think" ... Thus lawyers were born, lol.
-
This is why we say that lawyers "read" law, not write it. They only can read a law that already exists.
-
@dafyre said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
Lawyers were not needed until two guys said "Let's write this down" and couldn't agree on some of it. So they brought in a third party, and said "Tell us what you think" ... Thus lawyers were born, lol.
Almost. The lawyer cannot exist (literally, it's impossible for someone to be a lawyer) until a law is codified (orally, written, whatever.) Only then does a lawyer have the potential to "read" said law and advise clients on it or in some types of law, argue it before a court.
The basic concept of a lawyer is only to explain the law to clients, not to argue it. Lawyers do argue it, but only before a judge and only in some types of legal systems and still the lawyers only argue, they do not get to make any decisions ever.
-
One of the key points is that I think that @DustinB3403 thinks that when you go to court that the lawyers get to decide something. They don't. They are "end users" of the system just like anyone else. Politicians make the law, judges interpret the law. Lawyers just study it and advice on it and argue if they think someone else is wrong. But they never get to change it, set precedence or write new ones. They have no decision making power in any scenario.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@dafyre said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
Lawyers were not needed until two guys said "Let's write this down" and couldn't agree on some of it. So they brought in a third party, and said "Tell us what you think" ... Thus lawyers were born, lol.
Almost. The lawyer cannot exist (literally, it's impossible for someone to be a lawyer) until a law is codified (orally, written, whatever.) Only then does a lawyer have the potential to "read" said law and advise clients on it or in some types of law, argue it before a court.
Right. In my case, I was thinking more of a written agreement between two people, not necessarily a law. But they'd still need a third party (I guess arbitrator would be a better word choice here) to help them iron things out.
If lawyers had to come before laws... then an arbitrator would be the equivalent of the egg, lol.
-
The history of the legal profession reflects this with soft laws (verbal) predating written laws and written laws predating the first notion of lawyers by thousands of years. And then the first lawyers did nothing more than advice normal people on what to do, they could not even argue for them directly in court for a long time.
Think about the tribes of Israel. They had laws without lawyers for a very long time.
