Lawyers' True Superpower

As you follow the disputes about SB8, and challenges to the OSHA vaccine mandate, and so much else, always remember lawyers' true superpower: The power to turn every question into a question about procedure.

Comments

[Cal Cetín]

They got the power -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-prUUJdKu0E

until someone figures out a complicated procedure you have to use before using a procedural argument.

[DaivdBehar]

Procedure generates fees for nothing of value. The French taught it to the common law lawyer. Procedure makes the profession a toxic garbage profession. Because of the bad faith of procedure, beating the ass of the thieving lawyer has full justification in formal logic.

[DaivdBehar]

Hi, Eugene. Interested in a procedure that adds value? Allow editing of the comments.

[Jordan Brown]

Sad but true. Procedure is important, but sometimes what needs to happen is to decide what the desired result is, and *then* figure out the right procedure to get there. Sometimes you can find a way through existing procedure, and sometimes you have to decide that there is no existing procedure to get to the desired outcome and must establish new procedure. Sometimes Alexander's solution to the Gordian Knot is the correct one.

What's really wrong is when a substantive question is answered not through which answer is right, or which answer is supported by fundamental philosophy, or which answer is supported by more people, but through which side can better navigate the procedural maze.

Whatever one thinks the right answer is for abortion, or for vaccines, procedural wrangling is not the right way to come to an answer.

[Cal Cetín]

"sometimes what needs to happen is to decide what the desired result is, and *then* figure out the right procedure to get there"

I would say procedure is what we work out which gets us to justice most often and gets us to injustice least often. Open courts, trial by jury, rules of evidence, all that jazz.

In some cases, there's no substitute for experience. So if, for example, the lower federal courts prove more callous toward the unborn than the U. S. Supreme Court and the state courts, then by all means devise a procedure which takes this into account.

[Cal Cetín]

...and I'm afraid it's a bit late to worry about procedural wrangling over abortion. That's been going on for years, now people are flipping out because the prolifers have found out a procedural angle which favors the unborn.

[Cal Cetín]

Proceduralism:

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/pointing-their-pens-editorial-cartoons/middle-east.html#obj027_01

[Cal Cetín]

(granted of course that there are procedural angles which are ends in themselves, like avoiding forced self-incrimination, which is both an end (human dignity) and a means (avoiding false confessions))

[Cal Cetín]

(granted of course that there are procedural angles which are ends in themselves, like avoiding forced self-incrimination, which is both an end (human dignity) and a means (avoiding false confessions))

[Nelson]

Here's a great procedure:

FIRST convince more than 15% of the people that "the unborn" (or "preborn" or "living human being" or whatever emotionally loaded, factually unsupported phrase anti-abortion folks are using lately) should replace "the fetus".

THEN try to make it a legal requirement for the 85% of us that don't agree with you.

But that would allow people to choose their own religions and moral beliefs, and we can't have that. Coercive Christianity is completely consistent with the Constitution, right?

[Cal Cetín]

Oh, indeed, we need to get rid of those pesky commandments against murder, theft, and perjury. Anything forbidden by major religions should obviously be legal. There can be no sound reason why any of these things should be banned, outside of a theocracy of course.

[Cal Cetín]

Oh, indeed, we need to get rid of those pesky commandments against murder, theft, and perjury. Anything forbidden by major religions should obviously be legal. There can be no sound reason why any of these things should be banned, outside of a theocracy of course.

[Cal Cetín]

But wait, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice says abortion should be legal

https://rcrc.org/

...so, logically, we should *ban* abortion, just to to show the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice that they can't tell us what to do.

Seriously, if a rabbi told you not to jump off a bridge, would you jump anyway just to spite him?

[Cal Cetín]

"“the unborn” (or “preborn” or “living human being” or whatever emotionally loaded, factually unsupported phrase anti-abortion folks are using lately"

So they're born?

And they're dead?

Or they're not human?

Which facts are you positing?

[Lesliek]

In the English case of Mounsey v Earl of Lonsdale (1870) LR 6 Ch App 141, at page 143, James LJ said:

This case reminds me of what I was informed, forty years ago , by the late Mr Jacob, that questions in this Court [that is to say, the Court of Chancery] are in the following order, with respect to the importance attached to them and the zeal with which they are argued, namely, practice first, costs second, and merits third and last.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Did Texans include an exemption for religious claimants in the liability-for-abortion bill? Surely those moved to assist a woman for religious reasons would be respected in Texas . . .

[Bored Lawyer]

always remember lawyers' true superpower

Marvel should make a new super-character: Procedure Man. When the villains attack, he brings out his arsenal. Ripeness, Mootness, Failure to State a Claim. In extreme circumstances, he invokes his most powerful weapon: Pre-Emption.

[Cal Cetín]

And I wouldn't put it past the geniuses at Disney to try it.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

How many billion dollar productions must a company develop before its personnel can dodge your 'geniuses' snipe, Cal Cetin?

Not a fan of mainstream entertainments? Are Gutfeld!, Left Behind movies, faith healers, Last Man Standing, Pat Boone records, Tom Selleck reruns, and rattlesnake-juggling shows more to your liking?

Living at the disaffected conservative fringe seems profoundly sad.