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There's a story about law school that goes like this:
Course material is useless on the object level. The curriculum exists solely to force you to use Lawyer Brain, i.e. a particular mode of reasoning that is not intuitive to most people.
I think this story is mostly true.
Course material is useless on the object level. The curriculum exists solely to force you to use Lawyer Brain, i.e. a particular mode of reasoning that is not intuitive to most people.
I think this story is mostly true.
It's a common story, too; my professors seem to be in agreement that law school exists to produce Lawyer Brain. However, they don't seem to agree on exactly what Lawyer Brain is.
(In this regard, Lawyer Brain is like law itself.)
(In this regard, Lawyer Brain is like law itself.)
I'm still in the midst of it, but here's my working definition:
Lawyer Brain is the adept use of inductive reasoning on a set of information ("precedents", "statutes", etc) to produce statements which are persuasive to other Lawyer Brains.
Lawyer Brain is the adept use of inductive reasoning on a set of information ("precedents", "statutes", etc) to produce statements which are persuasive to other Lawyer Brains.
Law school was intuitive to me from day one.
I feel like Law Brain and Rat Brain are closely-related.
I feel like Law Brain and Rat Brain are closely-related.
The process by which a law school harvests its annual crop of Lawyer Brains is long and convoluted.
It involves both some filtering (to screen out candidates who do not conform) and some traumatic coerced adaptation (to perfect conformity among the remainder).
It involves both some filtering (to screen out candidates who do not conform) and some traumatic coerced adaptation (to perfect conformity among the remainder).
The cultivation of Lawyer Brain is somewhat destructive.
There's a common idea that law students tend to become more insufferable over the course of law school.
There's some truth to this. (My wife could explain in greater detail.
)
There's a common idea that law students tend to become more insufferable over the course of law school.
There's some truth to this. (My wife could explain in greater detail.
)
A thing that surprised me about lawyers:
A lawyer who represents you in court is technically an officer of the court. So while lawyer represents you to the court, the lawyer also represents the court to you (and to everyone else).
Generalizing a bit:
A lawyer who represents you in court is technically an officer of the court. So while lawyer represents you to the court, the lawyer also represents the court to you (and to everyone else).
Generalizing a bit:
All lawyers as representatives of the judicial system. They represent the system to the public.
In theory, this sounds kinda noble. But from another angle, it is less so:
In theory, this sounds kinda noble. But from another angle, it is less so:
The US legal education system has produced an army of roughly a million carefully-selected representatives who think differently from the citizenry as a whole. The purpose of this army is to persuade the citizenry that the judicial system is just. https://twitter.com/ThatsMauvelous/status/1321651969455460357?s=19
Is this a paranoid reading? Hmm yes I suppose so. But it's one that crosses my mind when I bump up against the uglier parts of the justice system.
I'm not saying this is definitely how the system works
but this is not *not* how the system works https://twitter.com/ruckerfoad/status/1359400544243044353
but this is not *not* how the system works https://twitter.com/ruckerfoad/status/1359400544243044353
