I know how this is going to sound but during college I thought I was going to go to law school and I had a cute little part-time job with the smallest local law firm. It was just the lawyer who had been doing it for ages and another part-time lawyer, so pretty much a one-man firm, and I would draft briefs for him that were absolutely ridiculous in their acerbity. He would then edit them and call me into his office and show me his edits and tell me I needed to tone it down. It was social security disability law, so there were a lot of people with debilitating diseases, some of whom didn’t receive benefits for YEARS until after their deaths (benefits went to widow/ers). It shook me and the scales fell from my eyes, but we actually worked on these things. He was a smart guy and could have done a different field of law but he genuinely wanted to do this, and the college students he employed cared too, and we crafted our own words.
I really miss that man.
Anyway, all of that to say even if paralegals were drafting the lawyers’ statements, there is no reason for them to not look over them and properly edit before they submit. Because some of my first drafts were wildddd lol
I had a similar experience with tech. During college I just assumed I’d work in a small business somewhere and I went to have a 10 year career in tech, and then the AI nation attacked
For anyone wondering where I am now, I hope to open a circus venue in the next 5 years
Part of the problem these days is people have slowly stopped mentoring young professionals like that. Yes it takes time, but it’s either paying it forward or leaving the world better than you found it. As a professional I have obligations to society, and I believe those include the integrity to review everything I professionally endorse to a reasonable degree, and to help guide and instruct younger members of my career when given opportunities. It’s important to say “hey, here’s what you did wrong, here’s why it’s wrong, here’s how you should do it.”
Bro during my intership I called a couple students into my office to say hey, you made a mistake, this is rife with typos, you didn’t even fill out this section, and they took it so badly. I was shocked. We were only a couple years apart in age but seriously they acted like they had a limp whenever you asked anyone to do anything.
A standout was when a patient’s BMI was recorded as 6,000 (obviously imopossible) and we all had a good chuckle about it and then I asked them to go find a a nurse to fix it because we didn’t know how to/didn’t have access on our end, and they gave me shocked pikachu faces. Like okay, you can’t correct that yourselves, what can you do…crickets. They pushed back so hard against anything I told them to do. It was my first experience managing people and they were acting like I was weird and bad and wrong for trying to tell them to do normal hospital stuff. So then I feel like the bad guy
Hey, as a man on ssdi I honestly appreciate you. And I honestly feel most lawyers and their employees are dedicated and work hard to get things right, that’s why when stupid shit happens it makes the news, noone wants to read "normal decent guy, dedicated to their profession, once again does an outstanding job.
I realy do appreciate your work, I’m a bit odd about words and love clear exact terminology, some leagal briefs I’ve read are fucking poetry.
Plenty of them are. (Only speaking on America because I don’t know much about elsewhere). The national lawyers guild is awesome. The ACLU has its controversies and decisions I may not love, but by fuck do they fight for our civil rights. Environmental lawyers accept shit pay and long hours to fight for a habitable world. Public defenders accept bad pay and long hours standing up for the accused (yeah lot of issues there too, but the job is necessary). There are lawyers fighting for civil rights all over, especially now as the government engages in tyranny. And yeah social security and disability lawyers fighting to get people what they’re owed.
Lawyers can be expensive, slimy, and weaponized, but they’re also a vital tool in pressuring governments, and yeah that goes both ways too. Fascists want you to be disillusioned by them because lawyers are part of how we preserve the rule of law instead of rule by law.
There is a lot to unpack here. But generally, you mention exceptions to the rule.
The ACLU, is milquetoast and always has been. They never stood up for the labor movement, and hardly stick up for those poisoned by the most powerful corporations for instance.
Court appointed attorneys? I am tempted to say get the fuck out of here, many are good, more are bad. These are aspiring good old boys, and or shitty lawyers that bend their clients over for the system so they can be part of the club.
Environmental lawyers are on notice after Donzinger. Don’t expect shit.
The system they operate under is broken, so if they want to succeed in their careers they have to betray the common good. That’s the problem and it’s not new, although getting worse.
Fuck Lawyers. What do you call a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the Lake? A good start.
Oh sorry I kinda went off on my own tangent but I’m glad you have people looking out for you. We had to file and file and file and kept bouncing to different courts and going to the 7th circuit etc and it was crazy how much work they put in to try to block it. Imagine if they just gave you benefits straight away, since they definitely wasted more money with the denials and appeals. What a wonderful world. I really hope you’re doing well (clearly I’m not the terminology guy)
Nah your good man, it truly is insane watching how much money gets wasted by trying to catch cheats. Just have Dr’s submit shit and get it done, then if someone does cheat go after the Dr’s and the cheaters.
Fraud for disability might be higher than other social welfare programs but last I heard fraud for food stamps (which directly supports American farming btw) was well under 1% which means if they spend more than that fraction of a percent looking for fraud it was a waste of money. Guess which direction the government would rather put their money.
I’m not a lawyer, path diverged, but it was both hilarious and devastating what went on in that office. I’d turn in initial briefs (my job way back then was to read through all their medical notes and then turn them into something readable for the law types) and it was just like “this guy has needed a new wheelchair for 2 fuckin years, assholes,” and then I’d find the specs of the different wheelchairs that would be more suitable, and then my lovely old boss would call me into the office and say “hey, that’s not how we word things, let’s have you go over my edits” and we’d trade back and forth until my vitriol married his professionalism.
A scathing legal brief is so exciting to read. You’re on the edge of your seat like it’s a final match in [insert your preferred sport] like GET EM!" Good times.
I hope you’re doing okay, message me if you want to vent about the SSDI process or anything! I’m not in it now tho
I miss integrity.
I know how this is going to sound but during college I thought I was going to go to law school and I had a cute little part-time job with the smallest local law firm. It was just the lawyer who had been doing it for ages and another part-time lawyer, so pretty much a one-man firm, and I would draft briefs for him that were absolutely ridiculous in their acerbity. He would then edit them and call me into his office and show me his edits and tell me I needed to tone it down. It was social security disability law, so there were a lot of people with debilitating diseases, some of whom didn’t receive benefits for YEARS until after their deaths (benefits went to widow/ers). It shook me and the scales fell from my eyes, but we actually worked on these things. He was a smart guy and could have done a different field of law but he genuinely wanted to do this, and the college students he employed cared too, and we crafted our own words.
I really miss that man.
Anyway, all of that to say even if paralegals were drafting the lawyers’ statements, there is no reason for them to not look over them and properly edit before they submit. Because some of my first drafts were wildddd lol
I had a similar experience with tech. During college I just assumed I’d work in a small business somewhere and I went to have a 10 year career in tech, and then the AI nation attacked
For anyone wondering where I am now, I hope to open a circus venue in the next 5 years
I could be a performer, I’m nimble
Part of the problem these days is people have slowly stopped mentoring young professionals like that. Yes it takes time, but it’s either paying it forward or leaving the world better than you found it. As a professional I have obligations to society, and I believe those include the integrity to review everything I professionally endorse to a reasonable degree, and to help guide and instruct younger members of my career when given opportunities. It’s important to say “hey, here’s what you did wrong, here’s why it’s wrong, here’s how you should do it.”
Bro during my intership I called a couple students into my office to say hey, you made a mistake, this is rife with typos, you didn’t even fill out this section, and they took it so badly. I was shocked. We were only a couple years apart in age but seriously they acted like they had a limp whenever you asked anyone to do anything.
A standout was when a patient’s BMI was recorded as 6,000 (obviously imopossible) and we all had a good chuckle about it and then I asked them to go find a a nurse to fix it because we didn’t know how to/didn’t have access on our end, and they gave me shocked pikachu faces. Like okay, you can’t correct that yourselves, what can you do…crickets. They pushed back so hard against anything I told them to do. It was my first experience managing people and they were acting like I was weird and bad and wrong for trying to tell them to do normal hospital stuff. So then I feel like the bad guy
Hey, as a man on ssdi I honestly appreciate you. And I honestly feel most lawyers and their employees are dedicated and work hard to get things right, that’s why when stupid shit happens it makes the news, noone wants to read "normal decent guy, dedicated to their profession, once again does an outstanding job.
I realy do appreciate your work, I’m a bit odd about words and love clear exact terminology, some leagal briefs I’ve read are fucking poetry.
You are talking about lawyers? Nice and decent? Wow.
Plenty of them are. (Only speaking on America because I don’t know much about elsewhere). The national lawyers guild is awesome. The ACLU has its controversies and decisions I may not love, but by fuck do they fight for our civil rights. Environmental lawyers accept shit pay and long hours to fight for a habitable world. Public defenders accept bad pay and long hours standing up for the accused (yeah lot of issues there too, but the job is necessary). There are lawyers fighting for civil rights all over, especially now as the government engages in tyranny. And yeah social security and disability lawyers fighting to get people what they’re owed.
Lawyers can be expensive, slimy, and weaponized, but they’re also a vital tool in pressuring governments, and yeah that goes both ways too. Fascists want you to be disillusioned by them because lawyers are part of how we preserve the rule of law instead of rule by law.
There is a lot to unpack here. But generally, you mention exceptions to the rule.
The ACLU, is milquetoast and always has been. They never stood up for the labor movement, and hardly stick up for those poisoned by the most powerful corporations for instance.
Court appointed attorneys? I am tempted to say get the fuck out of here, many are good, more are bad. These are aspiring good old boys, and or shitty lawyers that bend their clients over for the system so they can be part of the club.
Environmental lawyers are on notice after Donzinger. Don’t expect shit.
The system they operate under is broken, so if they want to succeed in their careers they have to betray the common good. That’s the problem and it’s not new, although getting worse.
Fuck Lawyers. What do you call a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the Lake? A good start.
Ok, boomer
I reconginze your username with negative connotations. Good job brain, you remembered another half witted troll!
Such a cogent argument to my reason too! You are truly a masterdebater!
I don’t remember you, another old man naively bitching about lawyers as a profession doesn’t really register, sorry
Make a joke about your wife next, I’m sure it’ll be original!
Worthless commentary, you aren’t worth responding to.
Oh sorry I kinda went off on my own tangent but I’m glad you have people looking out for you. We had to file and file and file and kept bouncing to different courts and going to the 7th circuit etc and it was crazy how much work they put in to try to block it. Imagine if they just gave you benefits straight away, since they definitely wasted more money with the denials and appeals. What a wonderful world. I really hope you’re doing well (clearly I’m not the terminology guy)
Nah your good man, it truly is insane watching how much money gets wasted by trying to catch cheats. Just have Dr’s submit shit and get it done, then if someone does cheat go after the Dr’s and the cheaters.
Fraud for disability might be higher than other social welfare programs but last I heard fraud for food stamps (which directly supports American farming btw) was well under 1% which means if they spend more than that fraction of a percent looking for fraud it was a waste of money. Guess which direction the government would rather put their money.
I’m not a lawyer, path diverged, but it was both hilarious and devastating what went on in that office. I’d turn in initial briefs (my job way back then was to read through all their medical notes and then turn them into something readable for the law types) and it was just like “this guy has needed a new wheelchair for 2 fuckin years, assholes,” and then I’d find the specs of the different wheelchairs that would be more suitable, and then my lovely old boss would call me into the office and say “hey, that’s not how we word things, let’s have you go over my edits” and we’d trade back and forth until my vitriol married his professionalism.
A scathing legal brief is so exciting to read. You’re on the edge of your seat like it’s a final match in [insert your preferred sport] like GET EM!" Good times.
I hope you’re doing okay, message me if you want to vent about the SSDI process or anything! I’m not in it now tho