Lawyers, Guns, and Money

[Tim May]

On Tuesday, August 21, 2001, at 08:25 PM, Mac Norton wrote:

> On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
>>
>> This is a good example of a point I made in my earlier post: academic
>> interests shift, following trends (translation: worth of granting 
>> tenure
>> for). Clipper and key escrow were very hot topics around 1993-95. 
>> Today,
>> it's stuff like ICANN and Napster (with Napster fading...).
>
> Tim makes a valid point here, but omits a companion point of
> perhaps greater importance, in context.  Faddish as it sometimes--
> well, hell, often--is, the academic side of the law is the
> *only* side of the law that even begins to reward originality.
> Those of us who actually represent people find that original
> thinking is the bane of most judges, unless you can make them
> believe the idea started with them.

I fully agree with this point...I thought I indicated this by frequently 
referring to professors, academic programs, etc. The only "lawyers" who 
get to do any substantive research are those working for or with 
prestigious law professors, or for a few dozen justices.

Everyone else is processing writs and regurgitating old boilerplate. Or 
maybe teaching young larvae who think they're about to change the world.

>
> Any parallels in software, both as to faddishness among
> the "original" thinkers and leader-following otherwise?


Many parallels. Nearly all programmers and engineers are doing what they 
are told to do. Only a small fraction are able to strike out in new 
directions. While we celebrate programmers like Linus Torvalds, most 
programmers are doing the programming equivalent of processing wills and 
divorces.

Drones rule, especially in a drone-dominated field like "the law."

Only study law if this is the kind of dronedom you prefer.

--Tim May